


shadows of the mess you made

by spock



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vikings, Angsty Schmoop, Crack Treated Seriously, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Non-Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:33:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey’s long been hailed as a demon — the soulless Rus conqueror, sprung up from the depths of hell, sired under his own will. It isn't until Ian refers to him as such that he finds himself loathe of the title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. company kept that disturbs your sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleInkhorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleInkhorn/gifts).



> said i wasn't going to write any more ian/mickey for a while yet here we are!
> 
> set somewhere in between ireland's first and second viking age. i literally have **zero** knowledge of the rus people or of ireland during this time, or if the rus actually it made that far but _shhhhhh_ this was meant to be cracky but i'm terrible at crack so it's serious. if you know about either of these things, feel free to correct me.

Everyone had been afraid that he was going to ask for one of the girls. 

_Him_ , because the stories of his numerous conquests that traders brought along with their wares never seemed to come with a name attached; the savage Rus beast, rumored to've risen up from the depths of hell, unheard of until three years ago — and after that you'd be lucky to hear anything but. Come to take the livelihoods away from any village that had the misfortune of crossing his path, and he might even steal the innocent girls, too, should he see fit, uncaring that they hadn't yet reached womanhood. 

Their time had come just as the twilight set. One of the men on watch spotting red sails cresting just so over the horizon, a boat making its way into the bay, its water leading whoever it was right into their barony. 

"They don't _look_ blood red," Kevin says, eyes squinting out at the water in the waning light. "Could just be the sky colorin' white sails off the water?" His tone spoke to him being unable to convince even himself.

He called for Philip and found no reassurance in a second pair of eyes. 

"Better not risk it," Phillip hedged, walking away from the shore. "I'm going to tell Fíona."

They'd dealt with Vikings from time to time, never had too much of a problem fending them off. Theirs wasn't a town that had much use for monasteries, didn't house the type of god-fearing men who fell prey to Norse raiders. 

The would-be pillagers that came for them were often little more than well-to-do third or fourth sons, ships funded by their father's gold, looking to terrorize as a means to keep themselves busy, docile, just far enough away that they wouldn't challenge their more-deserving brothers for a shot at the crown. Easy for their village to fight, defeat, and send back on their way, tails between their legs with few, if any, casualties for the people of their village.

This time felt different. These Rus people: unknown, unseen, the best accounts of their ways carried upon whispers, through the breaths of those who managed to escape utter domination, their owners shellshocked, spewing what everyone hoped to be nonsense. So farfetched were they in their rumored history, built up so grand and terrifying that first instinct was to suspect they were ghost stories, except for all the proof, the burnt husks of villages left in their wake. 

Fíona had the men ready their weapons, advised that they sleep, be well rested for whatever demons they need face in the morning.

She crawled into bed with her sister and youngest brother, willing them both to sleep. Liam still wasn't old enough to understand what was going on, and the forced calm of his eldest sister's was enough to lull him to sleep, but Debra had heard the stories and feared that she would be taken just as surely as the Rus would snatch up their horses.

Or worse, maybe the Rus leader would want Fíona, one old enough to provide children should he be in need of them. Losing Fíona would be a blow, tenfold. She's the one who rules over their little village, does all the things Frank's supposed to do, except she doesn't get the glory that comes with the title of Chief.

The two of them lay in their shared bedroom, listening to Liam sleep, neither of them able to close their eyes, fearing what the morning's light would bring.

In the front of their home Phillip and Ian sat awake as well, their hands spasming on the hilts of their daggers, anxious. Frank had wandered off earlier the night prior, unneeded and unwanted, free to do as he liked, and he hadn't returned. They'd sent their younger brother, Carl, out into the wilderness to find him. As useless as their father was, they'd need him when the Rus came, couldn't trust that they'd respect any offers made by their sister, a woman.

Carl found him in the dead of night, the best tracker they had, and he and his father made their way back to the village as dawn broke. 

Everyone was at the shore, waiting, watching as the single boat made its way into their cradle of land. The light was just as bad as it'd been the night before, but the ship was closer now, so close, and they could see that the sails were indeed red. Not striped with white, as the Viking preferred, but solid with gold in it, and strange carvings along the ship's bow. Foreign, from top to bottom. 

Frank rested against a rock, seemingly disinterested, but his eyes missed nothing. He watched as seven men set about docking their vessel along his harbor. The men didn't seem concerned with the crowd watching their movements, were jovial even, stretching their legs and talking amongst themselves in their native tongue. 

He waited for them to finish, sure as anything that none of these men were the leader, _the_ Rus. 

Sure enough, a man exited hull not long after the last knot was tied. He glanced up at them, at Frank's people, the first to look their way, and sneered. 

Frank took in the way his eyes glided over the women, children, men of fighting age, completely unconcerned despite being outnumbered. He took in the way his eyes lingered over Ian, his second eldest boy, before continuing their way, finally settling on Frank himself.

Frank was worthless, through and through, be he could read people, and he had a golden tongue, and those two things — his only redeeming qualities — were what kept him from being thrown out of the village. They always came in use, and there was no other better at tricking people into thinking that down was up, that what an unfair deal was actually fair, that Frank was gifting upon them the better of two options, and taking the lesser for himself.

"You," the Rus called up to Frank, his accent butchering their language, but in truth, Frank was surprised that he could speak it at all, butchered or no. The Norsemen who came to try to overtake them always had a captured Irish slave or lowly crewman translate for them, too foolhardy to see the benefit in speaking the language of those you sought to conquer. "You are the leader, yes?"

"I am," Frank confirmed. "Frank Ó Gallchobhair, at your service, Rus king."

"I am no king," the Rus said, frowning, and of that Frank was sure — he looked no older than Frank's eldest, but his eyes spoke of a boy who'd become a man through feats that would bring lesser men to their knees, and so there he stood, a king in Frank's eyes, if not as good as. 

He motioned to his men — if it could be called a motion at all, barely a twitch of his fingers — and they sprung into action, pulling their weapons seemingly out of nowhere, grasping them one handed, some shoving them between their teeth as they started to climb up the rocky cliffs up onto the mainland. 

One of the younger girls screamed, terrified, and the Rus shot her a look so sharp that her voice died in her throat. "Be quiet," he said, looking directly at her, but speaking to them all. "We have done nothing to make you shout, and if you are quiet we can keep it that way."

The Rus leader followed up after his men and walked straight to Frank, said, "We hear that you are known for your horses. If you give us three-quarters of your herd, as well as half of your grain reserves, we will leave you with the rest, and do no harm onto you. If you try to fight us we will take it all, and kill your people, and burn down your village so even your histories will not remain within its walls," he paused, mouthing something, before he finally said, "the Ó Galkhovhaiev's will die with you on this very day."

He mangled their family name, but Frank wasn't of a mind to correct him. 

"Reasonable beyond belief," Frank obliged. "But we are just a small village, and even losing just one of our horses results in a significant loss. Would you settle for half?"

Frank's people looked at him as if he were insane, murderous in their own rage towards Frank for rolling so quickly. He could see that his eldest son was disposed to attack while the Rus leader has his back turned. They were so taken with the fabled Rus that they paid no attention to his men, the way they had spread out and surrounded them. Frank was a survivor, he did not miss these things, and he knew of all the ways to make strong men do what he wanted, to set about it so they never even realized it had been Frank that planted _wants_ into their heads in the first place.

"I do not recall offering to barter," the Rus said.

"It's just that we are as good as dead without at least half of our stock," Frank opened his mouth and then paused, dropping his act for a moment. "Did you give your name, Rus king? Did I miss your introduction whilst gaping at the mastery your men exhibited over your vessel?"

"I say this but this one final time," the Rus stressed, "I am no king. I gave no introduction, but since you have gone to such lengths to spin pretty words to learn it, I will tell you that my name is Mikhaíl." He received a blank stare from Frank, his head nodding along as if waiting for the rest of it, and in that moment the Rus' facade cracked a bit, so unused to being looked at so plainly and without fear. 

Frank knew that no matter how adult a child was forced to act, a child was a child, and they would do anything to please an actual adult, even to their own downfall. It was for that reason the Rus couldn't help himself from tacking on, "Milkovič. The relief that spread across his shoulders at the smile Frank gave him let Frank know that the plan he had concocted would work — just as long as he sold it in the right manner. 

The name meant nothing to Frank, a bunch of strange noises, but he could make do with it all the same.

"Mikhaíl!" Frank parroted excellently. "Our people are more alike than you think. We have a name that is not unlike yours. Mick is what you would be called on our lands, I'm sure. A strong name for a strong lad; in fact I nearly named my second son Mícheál, for he is the best of my sons, truth be told, and I could tell that from the time he was a babe, but their late mother, she did not want to make the elder of the two feel less worthy, so we named him Ian." 

Frank wrapped an arm around Mikhaíl's shoulders as he spoke, using the other hand to smack the younger man's chest lightly, paternally. The Rus' men bristled, but with another one of Mikhaíl's barely there signals their bodies relaxed, accepting that their leader saw Frank as the farthest thing from a threat.

"Ian," Frank called. "Come and meet Mikhaíl, you two almost shared a name. It's fate that you two should meet."

Ian stepped forward, tentative, and Frank felt the Rus' body tense, and Frank knew without a doubt just what his plan would be, and what he was willing to do to save his own skin; had the added benefit of saving the village as well. Frank knew they would be angry, but even after all his years of selfishness and treachery, he was sure that he could make them see it was the only way, even if it wasn't.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, after all.

The Rus was practically a statue by the time Ian reached them, and Frank would have suspected that his son of turning the boy into stone, like one of the gods Romans had boasted over, had he not been able to feel the slight tremors radiating out through Mikhaíl's body from where Frank's hand was still wrapped 'round him.

"I would give you any of the women here," Frank started, and Ian looked ready to protest, but Frank silenced him with a look. Ian had always been a good warrior for their people, and Frank trusted that his innate ability to follow wouldn't fail either of them now. "But we have so few of them as it is. Losing them would be the same as losing our horses.

"I would offer you my eldest son, but he is so hard-headed and of such little use to me, I can't imagine he'd be worth any of the grief he'd cause you!" Frank sighed.

"I do not want your women nor your eldest, Frank," Mikhaíl said, awkward and uncomfortable with the way Ian was staring at the two of them, silently. Frank could tell that Ian was doing his best to figure out his father's latest scheme. "If I continue to find that I must repeat everything I say to you twice or more, I shall tire of speaking with you far sooner than you or your people would li— ."

"I know!" Frank shouted, cutting him off. "Ian, my middle son. Take him!" Frank's children yelled, appalled at Frank for making such an offer, treating their brother like livestock, willing to give him away to that demon that'd kept them all awake just the night before in fear. 

Mikhaíl's face pinked, and he stuttered out, "I have no use for a _second_ son."

"Mick, I tell you that he is my most precious son. He is as admirable a warrior as any, and I have no doubt that he'll pick up your language quickly. He's never shown an interest in women," at this Mikhaíl choked on nothing, and Frank bit back his smile, doing his best to keep up his earnest tone, though he knew his current offer would not be rejected, not now, "so there's no worry over him siring children at inopportune times with inopportune women. He'll be as loyal to you as a favored dog would. Surely a quarter of the horses, a third of our gain, and my second son — my people's most valued asset is enough for you?"

The Rus looked as if he'd been hit across the head. His men looked bored, sure that their leader would insist on his original demand, fully prepared to slaughter them all if Frank continued to insist on deals that were not welcome. 

A second son had little worth, nothing but a spare, possibly of some use if you could marry him off to a neighboring village that had more wealth than your own. If the boy had no desire for women then he couldn't be used to that end, so his lot in life surely lay in being the leader of their warriors at worst; hoping for his brother to die so that he would be the next in line for succession at best. 

"Fine," Mikhaíl's voice cracked part way through the word, so he gathered his dignity and cleared his throat, repeating himself. "Fine, but half of the horses, not a quarter. Have everything prepared so that we may be gone by nightfall."

"Thank you," Frank sobbed, imp's tears working their way down his face, summoned whenever he liked. "Thank you for your mercy!"

Mikhaíl finally shrugged off Frank's arm and tilted his head, taking in his newest charge. Ian had finally turned away from him and his father, instead started back towards his siblings, his face grave but accepting; Mikhaíl saw the look of a man that wouldn't fight Mikhaíl's claim on him. 

Frank turned to grab his son, pulling him close to his chest. 

"Thank you for your sacrifice, Ian," he murmured into his son's ear. "I have never been more proud of you." And that was a truth at least. "He will most likely tire of you within a few months, and then you can return," he said it with such earnestness that Ian believed him, but Frank meant it as nothing more than a placating lie, like telling your child that they were special and that the angel of death would never come for them, not even when they grew old.


	2. not one to ever pray for mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian takes to a Milkovič. Mikhaíl is reborn anew.

They've been at sea for three days and Ian refuses to speak unless spoken to. Still, he manages to terrorize Mikhaíl at every opportunity, seemingly without much effort. 

On the first night Mikhaíl instructs that Ian is to be put in one of the makeshift cells below deck, a safeguard until they can be sure he won't try to murder them in their sleep. They aren't far from Ian's village, a tactical disadvantage traded off for necessity. Before Mikhaíl overtook Ian's village he struck a deal with traders from the Caliphate, who're now waiting for Mikhaíl just off shore at Cenél Conaill's bend. Anton and Viktor have been tasked with herding the horses along the island on foot, their ship too small and ill-equipped to transport such large beasts en mass. 

Mikhaíl and the rest of his crew are trailing them by sea, keeping close the shore in case of trouble. It would be easy for Ian to escape and return to his home, even though Mikhaíl or one of his crewmen would follow him as sure as anything, kill Ian and the rest of his village, a matter of principal for going back on their agreement more than anything else. 

"You're not keeping me caged up like some animal," Ian tells Mikhaíl and his brother Jakub, disdainfully staring at the rusted iron bars that section the cell off from the rest of the hold, packed to the rafters with the food and water they pilfered off Ian's people. 

"I joined your crew under my own power. Treat me as you would any of your men." 

If there is one thing that Mikhaíl is sure of, it is that there is little chance of that happening, for more than a handful of reasons, each making Mikhaíl more uncomfortable than the one that preceded it, so he says, "These men are my blood: brothers, cousins, bastards." 

"Consider me a cousin then." Ian turns and climbs back up onto the deck. Mikhaíl looks to Jakub, both of their eyebrows raised as they're left in Ian's wake.

"Redheads and their tempers," Jakub notes in their native tongue. He's the one who taught Mikhaíl how to speak Ian's language, but he seems to be as disinclined to have Ian overhear them as Mikhaíl himself is. "Don't piss him off, Misha."

Mikhaíl has no plans to butt heads with Ian, has always been one to let his men do as they please so long as they listen to him in the moments where it matters. Ian strikes Mikhaíl as the type to find cause to fight over even his very own ideas, should no other step up to provide him the challenge, and Mikhaíl is sure that he'll bear the brunt of it regardless. 

In the morning, Mikhaíl shakes Ian awake; he knows that Ian fell asleep not long before, spent most of the night watching them across the deck from where he'd curled up at the bow, as far from the stern where Mikhaíl and his crew slept as he could get. Mikhaíl can't help but notice that Ian had taken off his shirt as he slept, balled it up to use as a cushion to rest his head. 

His skin is the color of milk, with small scars in random places; a warrior's body that has yet to see true battle, prepared for it all the same. He's so slight, skin stretched thin over the muscles underneath, not thick and compact as Mikhaíl and his kin are. There are swirls of colors, patterns tattooed up along the right side of his flank, all the way up his shoulder, stopping mid-bicep. They mean nothing to Mikhaíl, but he can appreciate their beauty all the same; a sign that adulthood has been reached, Mikhaíl figures, with room to grow as Ian's accomplishments later in life occur, should he reach them. 

Mikhaíl wants for nothing more than to have Ian to clothe himself again. 

"Ian. Ian the sun is up," Mikhaíl says, raising his voice as he repeats himself for the third time. Perhaps being hard of hearing is in the blood of Ó Gallchobhair's, and Ian has inherited the curse from his father. 

Ian rolls over onto his back and squints up at him, eyes unseeing. "Mick?" He mumbles, accent thick. Ian flops over onto his side again, blocking the sun's early morning light from his eyes by tossing an arm over them. "Mickey, it's my day off. Go away."

"Mickey!" Grigorij parrots, delighted. He doesn't understand a lick of Irish, can barely spell his name in Vulgaris, but he is four years Mikhaíl senior, and has always possessed the ability to pick out just the things that will make Mikhaíl squirm. "He has given you a nickname, Misha. And only a day after he joined our crew."

"Grishka," Mickey warns, although he knows that the more he protests, the deeper he digs his own grave. 

"No, no, Mickey. This boy was forced onto us, surely this is the first time he is away from his family. His father was the leader, no? So he is basically a prince. We should make him feel at home by using words that will make him feel comfortable."

Ian pulls his arm away from his face and glares up at them, muttering about the volume of their voices and the strangeness of their words. He and Mikhaíl and Grigorij all stare at one another, waiting for Ian to truly wake up. 

Jakub, Pyotr, and Alexi ignore the three of them, risen and starting to work on morning chores. 

Finally Ian comes to his senses and realizes what he has said and done, and blood rushes to his face, making it a good match for his hair. 

"Nice of you to join us, Vanya," Grigorij coos. "Mickey would like for you to help us with the morning duties, if it is not too much of a bother for you."

Ian cannot understand a word of what he's saying, but he picks up on 'Mickey' and looks suitably embarrassed. Mikhaíl's crewmen were born without shame, a trait Mikhaíl inherited in spades — probably received the extra bits that his kin inexplicably avoided. It will be nice to finally have someone else around who will understand Mikhaíl's constant mortification.

"Translate for me, Mickey," Grigorij demands, slapping Mikhaíl upside his head.

Mikhaíl shoots him a look, near-murderous, but Grigorji does not apologize. They both know that it will be a long while before Grigorij dares to disrespect him again; Mikhaíl has never been one to make a show of the power he holds over others, to make them tip-toe and fear him, but there are times when he demands respect and they grant it to him without question. That settled, he does what is asked of him, repeats what Grigorij said in Ian's tongue, and Ian scrambles up onto his feet.

Mikhaíl grabs Ian's arm before he can escape from his reach. "Put on your shirt. You're too pale to go without one." Ian nods and does as he is told before going to join Jakub and the rest.

"Come now, Mickey," Grigorji says, tugging his cousin across the deck. "See if you can spot your idiot bastard brothers along the coast, and I'll ready breakfast."

The next day is much of the same, Mikhaíl forced to awaken Ian, who refuses to sleep during the night. Ian is sweet and confused in the moments just after he has awoken; he still sleeps with his shirt off. Mikhaíl wants to command him to be fully clothed at all times, but he knows better. Grigorji would forever mark the day on their calendar as a sacred holiday, something to be commiserated yearly, and would report the incident directly to Anton once he rejoined them, and after that, it would follow Mikhaíl even into the afterlife, a joke for Perun and his friends. 

Ian is a good deckhand, does as he is told without complaint. His father called Ian a soldier. As far as Mikhaíl can tell, he did not lie.

Ian finds himself taken with Jakub that second day, keeps to his side, trails after Mikhaíl's brother like a duckling; helps Jakub with his tasks whenever he isn't attending to his own. Jakub is amused, twofold because of how agitated their kinship makes his brother. The extra pair of hands isn't all that much of hardship, either.

"You know Mickey speaks your tongue," Jakub says, mending a hole in one of the few items of clothing Ian brought with them, something he's already managed to tear. "You don't have shadow me if you seek conversation."

"Maybe I don't want to speak with your brother," Ian counters, and Mikhaíl does his best to pretend that he isn't listening, that Ian's constant rejection doesn't irritate him. 

"I understand. I _am_ much better than your dear Mickey. No one would blame you for choosing me." Ian turns as red as his hair again, and Jakub laughs, startled, but delighted. "The mind on you! I meant that I would be glad to be your surrogate brother. You'll have to search elsewhere on this boat to get more than that."

"I would never," Ian says seriously, "and I was not thinking about that." The blush still staining his cheeks does nothing to plead to the legitimacy of that obvious lie. 

"Can you imagine what would happen if he looked at any on this boat other than Mickey?" Alexi whispers. "Would Misha murder us in our sleep and make it look like we took our own lives, or would he leave us on some savage island, doomed to find our own way home?"

"This ship is not so large that I cannot hear you, Alyosha," Mikhaíl says, unamused. "I speak the same language as you, Alyosha. I will toss you overboard right this moment, Alyosha."

"Oh, have you been there this whole time, Mickey?" Alexi's voice was far too calm, and Mikhaíl knows that he has fallen for their teasing, so obvious now, in this immediate bout of hindsight. 

"Perun, please take this feeling from me," Mikhaíl says aloud, speaking to himself. "You tasked me with killing one of my kin not five years ago; you call upon me again to commit such a sin again?"

The mention of Mikhaíl's father has them all falling silent, and Ian picks up on the change in mood.

"What are you three speaking about," he demands. Turning to Jakub, Ian asks, "Tell me what they said, Jakub." 

"It's a tale for another day, Vanya." Jakub stands, wanting to diffuse the situation. "Lets go see if we caught any fish on our lines. Grigorji will want to start on dinner soon."

The rest of the day is subdued, but finally that night Ian sleeps with the rest of them along the stern. He accepts blankets Mikhaíl gifts upon him, but sets his makeshift pallet along Jakub's. 

Third morning has them finally reaching the Abbasid's trade vessel, a behemoth that dwarves their own ship, meek in comparison. They're there until midday, accepting sweets from the traders as they wait, sat along the chill rocky cliffs when Anton and Viktor finally reach the shore with the horses. 

"Vanya looks so sad, Mickey," Jakub comments, sliding up to his brother. "Let him check over the horses while the caliphs take stock."

Mikhaíl has found himself increasingly desperate to do anything to get into Ian's good graces. His brother has been advising him on ways to earn Ian's favor, but the boy always seems to know that they're Jakub's ideas and therefore becomes just that much more endeared to Mikhaíl's brother, leaving none of his affections for Mikhaíl. 

"Ian," Mikhaíl calls, beckoning him over. He's the only one of the crew who isn't calling Ian _Vanya_ now, other than Anton and Viktor, who haven't yet had the chance. Mikhaíl likes that Ian has a name unlike their own, and doesn't want him to lose it.

"You are a horseman's son, you should check the stock to make sure my idiot kin did them no harm." Ian lights up, smiles at Mikhaíl, — for possibly the first time, Mikhaíl unable to remember, so struck he is by the sight of it —and goes to inspect the horses that used to be his.

"What!" He hears Anton shout, voice full of joy. Mikhaíl turns and sees that his brother is speaking to Grigorji, their two faces let up where they are bent close together, sharing secrets. Anton catches Mikhaíl looking their way. 

"Mickey!" He calls out with far too much glee, and from then on Mikhaíl is no longer Mikhaíl.


	3. the sound of ancient voices ringing soft upon your ear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demons that hide deep in the recesses of Ian and Mickey's mind always seem to find a way to make themselves known, especially in the dark of the night.

Mickey jerks awake, hearing the ghost of Ian's whispered voice, Ian's hand hovering an arms length away from Mickey's body, fingers curled inwards. He must have shaken Mickey awake, and Mickey must have lashed out at him once Ian succeeded in his task. 

"Yes, what?" He mumbles, unwilling to apologize for whatever he'd done whilst his mind was in that in-between world that lies outside alertness and sleep, the place where his father continues to lurk and prey on him.

"We're going the wrong way," Ian answers, more than a touch of worry in his voice.

Mickey sighs and gingerly sits up, looking out into the darkness of the night. Everyone else is sound asleep and Mickey is envious of them for that. He glares at Jakub especially, who Ian still sleeps near. Jakub wakes at the shifting of the wind, which means there's no way he hadn't woken at the sound of Ian's rising, must have faked sleep, let Ian cross over the sea of bodies so that he could wake Mickey in his stead.

Mickey wonders if Ian tried to wake Jakub first, if he only came to Mickey once he fell for Jakub's act and assumed he was too far into his dreams to wake without rousing the entire ship; or if he came straight to Mickey, instinctually knew that Mickey was the only one who could fix his problems.

He decides that he doesn't want to know which is the truth, that it doesn't matter. Inside himself, he chooses to believe Ian came straight to him.

"I started suspecting yesterday when we passed through Danes. I thought maybe I'd mistaken another place for it because I've only ever seen the one side of it, but now I'm sure that it was Danes. This is no way to get to wherever your home is, not from up here."

Ian is speaking faster than Mickey can understand, voice rising, throwing in slang that Mickey's never learned. He has a hard enough time understanding Ian's language as it is, so different from his own. Like this, it is nearly impossible for Mickey to parse the words.

"Slow down," Mickey whispers, reaches out and places his hand at the curve of Ian's shoulder, palm resting just along Ian's collarbone. The echo of Ian's heartbeat pulses against his skin, far too rapid for this late in the night. "What's wrong?" Mickey frowns. "Calm down, everything's all right."

Ian doesn't appear to be soothed by Mickey's words, not in the slightest, but his voice is lowered again when he says, "You said that you were planning to return home. I don't know where your homeland is, exactly, but I'm certain this isn't the way."

Mickey stands and Ian is quick to follow, scrambling to his feet. He herds Ian to the other side of the ship where they can talk without constant worry of waking the others.

Something within him is disturbed by the way Ian's acting, frightened by the boy's own fear. He takes in the way Ian's eyes are wild even in the darkness, his breath coming as rapid as his heartbeat, a sheen of sweat layered over his skin. 

"Look there," Mickey says, leaning over the side of the ship as he squints out into the darkness, pointing to a shape barely distinguishable with the aid of the starlight. Ian startles and snatches Mickey's free hand into his own, holding on tightly, tugging him backwards. 

"Hey, no, I'm fine," Mickey steps away from the ships edge, confused as Ian plasters himself to his side. "It's just that we're going there," he points outwards again, "to Veleti. That is our home now. I cannot return to my homeland. I'd be killed before Pyotr even tossed the dock line."

Ian stares at him, still clutching onto Mickey, sweat slick between their palms, making it so that Mickey's back is stuck to Ian's chest from the tackiness of it.

"I've never been to Veleti," Ian murmurs, turning to look out at the sea where Mickey's finger is still gesturing, and he cannot tell if Ian's speaking to himself or if he's expecting for Mickey to answer, though Mickey has no idea what a proper answer to that would be. Their faces are so close together that Mickey can see the way Ian squints, as if Ian could make out the mainland if only his eyes try hard enough.

"That's fine," Mickey says placatingly. Ian jerks, as if he'd forgotten that Mickey was there. Mickey doesn't understand how he could forget, he's still gripping Mickey's hand, tightly, as if letting go would lead to Mickey sinking to the bottom of the abyss. "We'll be there by daybreak, and then you'll have been there, to Veleti — and when we leave again we'll go lots of places you've never been before."

Ian smiles at him, wider and brighter than he's ever shown around them, not even for Jakub. "That's amazing!" He says and Mickey can feel the way Ian's heart, breath — all of him — _settles_. 

Mickey's never seen calm wash over a person so quickly. Ian had been genuinely terrified, and Mickey had thought it impossible for the body go from fear to tranquility without some sort of transition, something to ease it through. He wants to ask if Ian was faking it, if this was some scheme concocted by Grigorji or Anton, even though Mickey cannot for the life of him figure out what the punchline is, what they hoped to achieve.

Before he can ask, can demand to know why Ian is suddenly better when just seconds ago he had been so far away from that, Ian uses his free hand to turn Mickey so that they're facing one another. 

He kisses Mickey, hard, with what feels like his entire being — his soul joining in as well. 

"We're going to Veleti, Mickey," Ian tells him in-between presses of their lips. "How exciting. My family will never believe it." Each word is interspaced with the way he licks into Mickey's mouth, kisses him. He uses his height to press down, directly onto either of Mickey's shoulders. 

Mickey has no choice but to sit, stumbling backwards as Ian follows him, gets Mickey so that he's laying on his back, boat rocking slightly as Ian settles on top of him. He moves over Mickey's body like a cat, using the way the boat sways at the force of the water as a means to set the pace for his own movements. 

Mickey feels like he's drowning, sure that he must have fallen into the water and that he's close to death, his mind replacing the frigid waters with Ian's body, helping him to accept death gently, with open arms.

"Mickey, Vanya." Jakub's voice breaks through the sound of the ocean, the cadence of their lungs, the slick noises of their mouths, the dull rhythm the skin of Mickey's back makes as it connects with the wood of the boat each Ian presses him back down from where he's surged up to meet Ian's kisses.

Ian pulls away and Mickey feels his breath catch in his throat. There's a dark look on Ian's face, deep and base and _mean_. Mickey's never seen him look this way before, not even as he waited as stoically as he could for his village to give their horses and food to Mickey and his men, was himself gifted to Mickey by Frank against his will, never to see his friends or family again. 

He looks as close to a demon as Mickey can imagine, and Mickey is sure that Ian has been possessed. There is only one person that Mickey has ever seen with such darkness in them; Mickey fears that his father has found some way to escape Veles' punishment and has taken Ian's body, returned to get revenge on Mickey.

He breathes out his father's name, staring into Ian's eyes, waiting for a flicker of recognition to pass through them, for his father to acknowledge him. 

"Vanya," Jakub says again, and just as with Ian's complete and utter fear earlier, the look on his face is gone in an instant, just as swiftly as it came.

He turns away from Mickey's prone form — laying beneath him, flattened against the deck, trying to get as far away from Ian as he'd been able — and looks to where Jakub stands, halfway to where they're pressed along the side of bow's wall.

"Jakub!" Ian says excitedly, scrambling up off Mickey's body, his long legs eating up the few paces between himself and Mickey's brother, wrapping his arms around him. Jakub lets out a surprised grunt when Ian slams into him, forcing the air from his lungs, and hugs Ian back on reflex, supporting his weight so that they both don't go tumbling down. "We're going to Veleti!"

Mickey can hear the rest of his crew begin to grumble, jolted awake from the volume of Ian's voice and the way his running rocked the ship. 

He rises onto his elbows, heart hammering in his chest as he stares at Ian's back, confused at being woken up in the dead of the night, at Ian's fear, at the way Ian kissed him, at the look that crossed Ian's face for half a second before it was gone.

Jakub stares at him over Ian's head, and Mickey catches his brother's gaze, stares back, both of them wide-eyed and bewildered.


	4. so was the day that you came to town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the light of day, a person can convince themselves of anything.

The lot Mickey purchased for he and his kin is larger than most for a family of their size — eight in total. Nine, now, if Ian is to be counted. Big enough to support a livelihood in livestock or farming, although they only keep enough to feed themselves, a means to cut down on what they're forced to trade and buy at the market. It's been under Mickey's name for a little less than two years, their houses finally finished over the winter past. The houses are strange to them, so far different from what they're used to, built in the style of the Swedes and Goths.

He's eager to return to it, this strange new lifestyle that he's built for himself and his kin. 

Mickey's sleep deprived, going through the motions as they land on the dock and unload their spoils. He doesn't want to draw out the process any longer than it needs be, haggles halfheartedly with the buyers on the shore, just for show, before accepting a middle-of-the-road offer, passing his earnings off to Alexei for safe keeping so that he doesn't have to divert energy he does not have to keep an eye out for pickpockets. 

Jakub's spent the whole morning trying to catch Mickey alone, but Mickey keeps close to his cousins and brothers, knows that whatever Jakub hopes to speak on is something that he doesn't want the others to hear. His elder brother's appreciation for discretion has always worked in Mickey's favor, and this time is no different. 

Ian's eyes take in the sights, wondrous, yet he never strays from Mickey's side, bringing a hand up to curl around Mickey's bicep, keeping himself anchored to him. Jakub eye's catch this, too, and Mickey know it'll be yet another thing his brother will want to corner him over.

Mickey is convinced that whatever happened during the night was a fever dream. Looking back on it, Mickey can't decipher what might be memory and what's something his mind filled in or altered, what could be things he imagined. 

Ian's just the same as he's always been, face sweet and docile, forehead marred in lines as he tries to speak with Grigorji, the two of them using their hands to convey what their lack of shared language cannot. 

The kiss they shared probably happened, Mickey concludes decisively, hopefully. The look on Ian's face when Jakub first interrupted them must have been Mickey's mind and the darkness aiding one another in order to play tricks on him. His father had haunted his dreams that night before Ian had woken him. Dreams like that, they take a while to leave him, usually require sweat to fully purge his memory from Mickey's being, a brief reprieve before his father comes back some other night, bringing new and unfathomable terrors with him. 

Mickey had no time to get past it, not when he had to deal with whatever had Ian frightened. Mickey should have expected that his mind would play tricks on him. It's the only thing that makes sense, and he feels embarrassed at himself for the fear he felt in the moment; a child hearing scratchings under his bed and thought it was Baba Yaga coming for him when in actuality it was nothing but a mere mouse. Mickey tries to feel calmed by his conclusions. Tells himself that he is.

"I think Grigorij says that you have four houses," Ian says to him, stumbling on Grigorij's name. No one had been pleased to've been awoken before the sun rose, but Ian worked some magic on them: the time they spent waiting for dawn to break was used to teach Ian how to say their names, to mixed results.

"Just call him Grishka, Ian," Mickey says bemusedly. Ian has been angling to get himself permission to call Grigorij ' _Gréagóir_ ', but his cousin refuses to allow it, unwilling to have an Irish name forced upon him, even though he'd gleefully helped push one on Mickey. "And, yes, we have four. One is mine, the other is for my brothers, another for the cousins, and the last for the bastards."

"Why not live in one home?" Ian asks. 

"It's not how it is done," Mickey says magnanimously, intentionally vague. Ian looks unconvinced, glancing at him critically with his eyebrows raised. "There would be an unrepentant slaughter if we spent any extra time together; time spent on the sea is more than enough already. Tempting fate is an unwise risk when we have the means to avoid it," Mickey admits. Ian accepts this answer more readily than the first.

Viktor returns from where he'd gone to store their boat and Mickey turns to make sure that everyone is accounted for before heading towards the horses they rented for the short journey home. Their return had coincided with the arrival of many Sammi traders, horses for hire scarce as a result, the eight of them forced to double up. 

Ian raises himself onto one of the horses and Mickey climbs up onto the beast behind him. Mickey reaches around Ian's waist to take hold of the reins, his smaller body encasing Ian's taller one. He'll most likely have to navigate the route by memory, as best he can, knows that Ian should be the one riding behind him, that the differences in their heights have seeing over Ian's an impossibility, but any other seating arrangement would just be giving Grigorij and Anton more things to tease him over, and Mickey refuses to provide easy material for them whenever possible, even if it does wind up making life more difficult for himself.

Ian turns slightly, looks down at Mickey from over his own shoulder, through his eyelashes, before leaning backwards, body hunching down due the angle of his spine changing, enough that he can rest his head in the curve of Mickey's neck, his shoulder blades resting on top of Mickey's chest, allowing Mickey to see the road in front of them.

Mickey turns his head slightly, presses his nose into Ian's hair, and thinks to himself that kiss must've happened, then.

Their ride out of the city and into the mainland is uneventful, Ian taking in the sights silently, Mickey's kin talking amongst themselves behind them.

"Wait, which house am I to live in?" Ian asks suddenly, when they're about thirty minutes out from the start of Mickey's property.

Jakub laughs, loud, longer than Mickey thinks such a comment warrants, and the rest of them all start talking at once, demanding to know what Ian's said. Jakub translates for them, and then they're all laughing too. 

"Why his bed, of course, Vanya!" Alexi crows sensually. "Mickey, perhaps you have gotten a virgin groom; surely no well-versed man would question his place in such a way?"

Ian starts to turn, hearing his nickname amongst the mass of words he doesn't understand, but Mickey knows better than to allow that. He reaches up and places two fingers along Ian's jaw, pressing so that Ian has no choice but to keep face forward.


	5. waiting down at the ancient gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey's lucky, except for all the ways that he isn't.

The rest of their ride is uneventful, and Mickey is undoubtedly indebted to his brother for the reprieve. The others had kept at their teasing, past the point that Mickey typically allowed. They knew that Mickey was holding himself back, that he didn't want to clue Ian into his discomfort at their words, and the opportunistic bastards were too smart not to take up the chance given to them. 

He was doing his best not to frighten Ian; Mickey knew of his reputation around Ian's homeland, and he was not of a mind to confirm that the majority of it was true, not when it was obvious that Ian valued family above all other. What kind of monster was genuinely able to harm, to _hate_ , a member of his family, his own blood?

Mickey.

Jakub calls an end to the mocking, tells them to pick something new to talk about, saves them — both them from Mickey, and Mickey from himself, as well as Ian, from the truth, although he does not know it, won't know it. They settle down, going back to their own conversations, leaving Mickey be. 

Not long into the relative silence, Ian tips his head back again, nose running softly along Mickey's jaw, looking up at him. "Mickey," he starts, a questioning lilt to his voice, and Mickey knows that whatever it may be that Ian asks, he will do his best to give it to him, no matter what it is. "Can I take hold of the reins? Just for a while."

Mickey hands them over to him, accepts the smile Ian gifts on him in exchange. He expects Ian to straighten himself, sit up tall now that Mickey has no need to see over his frame. Instead, he stays in his reclined state, continuing to keep his head along the incline where Mickey's neck meets his shoulder, the home it's found for the entirety of their journey. 

His heartbeat kicks up and he knows that Ian can feel it where his chest presses into Ian's back, can see the slight smirk that tilts Ian's lips. Desperate to regain some form of control, Mickey makes use of his newly freed hands, grabs twin handfuls of Ian's hips, just slightly slipping his fingertips underneath Ian's tunic, feeling at his smooth, warm skin.

Ian doesn't offer the reins back, nor does Mickey offer to take his hands away. An even trade if ever there was one. 

Iosif greets them once they reach the houses, having heard the horses approaching, probably, or, more likely, heard his idiot family talking loud enough to alert their neighbors nearly two hours away. Iosif is soft in the way others expect Mickey to be, although he isn't like Mickey at all, not in that way, but it's because of this that Mickey allows his brother to stay and take care of their homes while he and the rest go out on their raids.

"Mikhaíl," he greets directly, nodding to the rest. 

" _Mikhaíl_!" Alexi says Mickey's given name as if it is foreign, something he'd never said aloud before in his life. "How long since we've heard that name. Have we traveled into the past?" His comments get Anton and Grigorij going, the three of them speculating on where they went wrong to wind up in this strange new world where Mickey isn't Mickey. 

Iosif ignores them, not letting his cursorily lure him into teasing his brother, far too smart to hitch his wagon to theirs when it's obvious Mickey has had his fill of them today. "Who's this?" He asks, gesturing towards Ian. 

"Mickey has found himself a husband," Pytor comments dryly, hopping off the back of his and Jakub's horse. 

"Mickey?" Iosif echoes, amused.

"No need to marry him off so hastily," Grigorij chirps in, breaking off from his conversation with Mickey's bastard brothers to add, "Ian remains nothing more than a body slave in-name-only until Mickey divines their compatibility, surely."

Mickey has Ian dismount first, hopping down himself once Ian's securely on the ground. "Get them away from me before I do something I regret," Mickey tells his brothers, more serious than not. 

The two share a brief look, before Jakub says, "Toshya, unload the horses. Grishka, Alyosha: You two will ride them back into town." The three start speaking all at once, voicing their complaints. 

"I don't care if you've been traveling," Iosif cuts them off, raising his voice to be heard over their whining. "This isn't a discussion. Hurry so that you can return before nightfall descends."

Mickey herds Ian towards the largest house, slightly distanced away from the other three that make up an unofficial courtyard. "This one is my home," he tells him. "Yours now, too."

Anton trails after them, knowing to unpack Ian and Mickey's things first. He hands them over to Mickey and promptly turns back without a word, going to rid the horses of the rest of their burden so that Alexi and Grigorij can make their journey back into town. 

"I need to learn your language," Ian comments as they enter Mickey's home. "I don't like that they can speak of me without me understanding."

"Even if you learn it, you won't understand a thing those idiots say. I've never heard a word of sense leave their mouths," Mickey answers, distracted as he goes about dropping their used clothing next to the back door inside his kitchen, the place he always leaves soiled things so that Iosif will know to wash them. "Here, come, I'll show you to your room." 

"Jakub can teach you," Mickey continues, offering up his brothers services as they make their way deeper into the house. "He taught himself your language, and then taught it to me."

"Did he really?" Ian asks, sounding excited. Mickey remembers Ian's attachment to his brother then, and decides that he shouldn't discount Jakub as a rival just yet, kiss or no.

"This is to be your room," Mickey says, changing the subject. "Mine is on the other side of the hall, just down there." He points to it, completely on the opposite side of the house from where he has Ian staying, a choice that wasn't made on accident. 

Once they both inspect his room and he has Ian deposit his things, they go back outside to rejoin the others. Iosif has developed a routine for them, knows how tired they are after extended journeys at sea, never mind the horse ride home, so he has a full evening meal ready for them, though it isn't more than a few hours past midday. 

The seven of them enter Iosif and Jakub's house, gather around the table and tear like savages into the food Iosif prepared, glad to have something warm to ingest for the first time in nearly a month. 

It's the first time Ian has tried the food of Mickey's people. He hadn't been out at sea for as long as the rest of them had been, so he has the presence of mind to compliment Iosif, saying, "This is really good! I think I might actually like it more than the food my sister made, although you mustn't tell her that." Mickey and Jakub laugh with their mouths full but don't slow down in their eating. 

"What did he say?" Iosif asks, hitting Jakub when both his brother's refuse to lift their faces from their bowls long enough to translate for him. "Yasha, tell me what he said."

"He says your food is amazing and that you cook better than his sister back home ever did, but we cannot tell her that," Jakub says all within one breath, "Leave me be, man; it's either eat or fall asleep, and I'll make my bed right here in this bowl, I swear it."

Iosif smiles at Ian in thanks, reaching out to pat his shoulder a few times. Ian smiles back at him, and for the rest of the meal the pair tries to converse over the heads of everyone else, knowing that they won't find aid from anyone else to help facilitate their conversation.

At the meals end, Ian rises with Iosif and helps him carry the empty bowls into the kitchen, the two of them speaking past one another in different languages, pretending that they're actually holding a conversation as they guess at what the other says.

"Maybe you _did_ find a husband," Jakub says as he watches them go about their tasks. 

"Only you would be able to pick out a village's most renown warrior and have him be a renown husband as well," Pytor says disgustedly. "What tree do you eat from? What gods to do you pray to? Where must I go to get such luck?"


	6. where in the night sky are the lights hung

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things must be torn down before they can be rebuilt.

Spending days — weeks, _months_ — at sea has trained Mickey to appreciate his bed. As a child he would stay awake deep into the hours of the night for a variety of reasons: fear that his father would come punish him for something he'd done, fear that his father would come punish him for something he hadn't done, fear that his father would sell him away to pay off some minor debtor just so that he wouldn't have deal with Mickey any longer.

As he grew older the fears never left him, but that did not mean that new fears did not find space to join in, to give him something different to agonize over. A break in the monotony, as Grigorij would say. 

He'd lie in bed, his body aching, hand never leaving his dick: squeezing, rubbing, pulling. He'd think on Jakub's friends, all of them at least four years his senior, bodies blooming into adulthood, long limbs wrapped with corded muscle, lean beyond reason from toiling on their family's farms, or serving as soldiers under warlords; all of them still looking healthy and _perfect_ , even though the whole region had their rations cut into thirds because of the famine sweeping through, not even rich families such as Mickey's able to escape the brunt of it, forced to make concessions of their own. 

He'd lie in bed, near starving, rubbing himself raw, mind torn between the pleasures that his mind would conjure up to torture him, a heaven that he would never reach in reality, desires that consumed him — yet still his mind was able to keep track of all the things that scared him, all the things his father did, and even the things he threatened to do. It was never enough to have him pull his hands away, possessed as he was with that incessant _need_.

Mickey no longer has any reason to fear his father, doesn't, honestly, at least not with his waking mind. 

Those days on a ship — sleeping atop a few weathered blankets layered over the hard, swollen wood of his ship, constantly having water sprayed up onto his body so that when he wakes his skin snags and scrapes from the salt dried and caked on to any place it had been able to settle and reach — they've helped him overcome fears, something more than half his lifetime trained him to be unable to do. 

He'll drop down onto the soft feathers packed into his mattress, a luxury only a prince could afford, a title that no longer applies to him — an item he did not possess even when the title _had_ been his. Returning home means that he will fall asleep instantly, wherever he can, but especially here in his princely bed, and will do so every night until they drag the ship out in the harbor and start the cycle all over again.

Tonight it's as if he's been taken back to that period in his life where sleep was a thing that he couldn't appreciate, that eluded him at every turn. Instead of his father, it's thoughts of Ian that keep him awake. Mickey thinks on Ian, and how he's down the hall, how he will be living in Mickey's house until Mickey tires of him — an impossibly —, or until Ian tires of Mickey, and attempts to kill him in his sleep. Mickey thinks on what he would do, should that day come, if he would kill Ian in retaliation, or if it would be easier to allow let Ian kill him instead. He likes to believe that he could kill Ian in self-defense, at the very least, but Mickey knows himself, knows intimate things about himself and what he's capable of, things that others would sell their souls to never know about their own minds and hearts. Mickey knows that as days pass and he spends more and more of his time in Ian's company, any sense of self-preservation will quickly die, and he will be more likely to aid Ian's hand as he slides a dagger across Mickey's throat than he would be able to so much as raise a fist to cause Ian harm.

The floorboards just outside the entryway to Mickey's room heave a sigh, so Mickey rolls onto his side to face it, stares out into the darkness of the hallway leading to his room, wonders if tonight is to be the night that Koschei comes to steal him away, or if Morana has come to take him into the afterlife, or if, perhaps, his father has taken to Ian's body again, if he's come to seek his rightful revenge. It crosses his mind for a moment that maybe Ian's come to kill him for as simple a reason as that he'd like to see Mickey dead. 

It's too horrible for a final thought, so Mickey pushes it from his mind as a kindness to himself, even if it is a foolish one, to assume that Ian wouldn't love to see Mickey dead. 

"I've never had a whole room to myself before," Ian says, leaning against the framing of Mickey's door. The moonlight streaming in through the window catches on his skin and it's as if he's translucent, making it so that Mickey is able to see the blues and reds of his blood hiding just beneath the surface. "Your house it too quiet."

Mickey's voice catches in his throat when he tries to speak, an ugly near-choking sound. He raises so that he is sitting on his bed and bends to grab the pitcher of water he keeps beside the head of it, drinking deeply from the mouth of it. 

"I hadn't either," Mickey says, finally, dropping the pitcher back onto the floor, wiping the excess from his lips with the back of his hand. "Not until I had the houses made. Having known the life of living with many has made me enjoy the silence. I have never missed it."

"I do not care for such silence," Ian says plainly, honestly. He enters the room fully and Mickey realizes that Ian is naked, not even wearing his smallclothes. Although Ian had constantly been without his shirt on the ship, this is the first time Mickey has seen him without anything shielding his body from view. He cannot claim that he doesn't like the sight of it, the picture Ian makes, with his red hair and translucent skin, standing at the foot of Mickey's bed.

"What would you like me to do to fix it?" Mickey asks. It's a battle to keep his eyes on Ian's face, he does not know why he's waging it, can't imagine what the reward would be for him winning, how it could be better than the sweetness of losing so that his eyes may grace the beautiful complexity of Ian's body that lies below his waist.

Ian says nothing, rolls his shoulders and walks closer towards Mickey's bed, climbs up onto it and helps himself beneath Mickey's furs, his arm lightly brushing Mickey's as he settles down, laying on his side so that he may look up at Mickey.

"I've shared a bed with my brother for my entire life," Ian tells him. He reaches out and pokes one of his long, skinny fingers into the meat of Mickey's hip where his smallclothes rolled down slightly from his haste to sit up earlier.

"I am not your brother," Mickey says.

"No," Ian agrees.

Mickey slides down the bed, laying so that he's facing Ian. Once Mickey's settled, Ian rests his hand on the shoulder Mickey isn't laying on, fingers curling around it.

"I—," Mickey begins to say, and then stops, unsure of what he wants to say. _I don't understand what you want_ , maybe. Or, _I'm no good. I'm tainted. You wouldn't want me if you knew me_. The language barrier that lies between suddenly them feels so vast; Mickey doesn't have the words in Ian's tongue to say, _In these moments when you come to me like this I feel as if I'm right where I should be, and I'm fearful of them for that. The last time we kissed something happened to you and I'm worried that it'll happen again, that the more we do this, the worse off you'll get, and it'll all be my fault_. Even if he could, Mickey's sure that he would never put voice to the words anyway.

"I would burn kingdoms to the ground for your mouth," Mickey says instead, and Ian smiles, dark and wicked. 

Ian shoves at Mickey until he's laying on his back and climbs atop Mickey's body, sits on his thighs, looming over him as he says, "I can't imagine what you would do for the rest of me, then."

"Good boys like you never can," Mickey says dumbly, his eyes caught within Ian's own. As he speaks the words he believes them, but once the sentence is free of his mouth he doesn't believe it for a second, not with the way Ian's rolling his body on Mickey's, putting pressure exactly where Mickey wants it most. Mickey's never known a boy like Ian, but staring up into Ian's eyes, he can see that Ian knows exactly what men such as Mickey would do for Ian, in order to keep Ian, to gain Ian's favor, to be called Ian's favorite. 

Ian smiles down at him, a real smile, nice, like he think's Mickey's sweet, before lowering his mouth to kiss Mickey, licking into his mouth and biting at his lips, chasing Mickey's supposed sweetness. 

When they break apart, Ian smiles again, huffs out a breathless laugh and taunts, "Well, how was that? What kingdom will you tear apart for that kiss?"

"My own," Mickey says in a moment of honesty, unintentional, absolutely mortified with himself once he realizes what he's said, how much of himself he's revealed. 

Ian's shocked too, stares down at the flush that Mickey can feel overtaking his face. He makes a noise, a low, guttural, rumbling thing that passes from his chest into Mickey's from where it's pressed tight to Ian's, before dropping his head down again to kiss at Mickey's mouth, harder and more real than either of the two they'd shared prior. They kiss, hard and open mouthed as Ian reaches down and shoves Mickey's smallclothes down his thighs, leaving them both naked, bodies touching from ankles to forehead. 

Ian starts pressing kisses to Mickey face, licking and nipping his way down Mickey's neck, collarbone, chest, stomach, shoving the furs off them onto the foot of the bed until he's reached Mickey's cock, hard and straining as it is, twitching against the underside of Ian's chin. He takes Mickey into his mouth and Mickey jolts, shoves himself further into Ian's mouth as a result, hands grappling to hold onto anything he can reach: Ian's shoulders, Ian's neck, Ian's hair. 

It's all that Mickey can do to keep himself from crying out, the pleasure of Ian's mouth too much for him to bear. He stares down at Ian as he works on him, the way Ian keeps his own eyes open and bores holes into the flesh of Mickey's groin, as if he doesn't want to miss a moment of it, this moment that he and Mickey are sharing together, making together. Mickey can feel the heat of Ian's dick pressing into the meat of his thigh, Ian grinding against the muscles of Mickey's leg, seeking his own release. 

Ian pulls off him, ignores Mickey's whimpered litany of _no_ s, of _please_ s — Mickey no longer having any doubts against Ian being a demon, none with any empathy could leave Mickey in a state such as this. Ian grabs at Mickey's hips and turns him so that he's laying on his front and Mickey uses the opportunity to rut against his mattress, near sobbing. 

Mickey hears Ian spit into his hand as he unfolds the length of his body over Mickey's back, feels Ian's knuckles brush against his skin as Ian strokes himself briskly before slipping his dick between Mickey's thighs, angling so that the head drags right up against Mickey's balls. 

The pace of Ian's thrusts rocks Mickey's against the bed, his dick sliding deliciously against it. Ian pants against Mickey's neck as he fucks Mickey's thighs, his hands stroking Mickey's upper arms, his flank, seemingly unable to stop himself from touching Mickey's body. 

Mickey comes first, grunts with how good it feels, how long it's been since he last touched himself, can't even recall offhand the last time he found another man to lie with. Ian keeps going, pauses only for a moment to flip Mickey over so that he's laying on his back before pressing down again and rutting against the 'v' of Mickey's hips, his dick sliding through Mickey's come, thrusting against Mickey's own oversensitive cock where it's still hard and flushed with blood. 

Mickey groans, because it hurts, but also in spite of the hurt, because he doesn't want Ian to stop, reaches up to grab fistfuls of Ian's hair because it feels like the only thing he actually can do. 

Ian comes when Mickey's finally just begun to go soft, his mouth hanging open against Mickey's neck as he circles his hips minutely, adding to the mess on Mickey's groin. Mickey lies beneath Ian's dead weight and holds him through it, runs his fingers lightly up Ian's back as Ian slumps against him, spent. 

"Your bed is so soft," Ian mumbles dumbly into the skin of Mickey's shoulder, gently rolling himself to the side so that he's only half laying on Mickey's body, most of his weight now resting on the mattress, still keeping his leg tossed over both of Mickey's, his arm tossed over Mickey's chest, effectively pinning him to the mattress.

Mickey trails his fingers up Ian's spine until they come to rest in his hair, petting him, humming in agreement, and doesn't let himself answer with, _It's yours if you want it, just promise you'll let me stay here, let me lie here in it, with you_.


	7. can barely remember you beside me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the fun things in life while you can.

Ian's still there when Mickey comes to in the morning, his weight anchoring Mickey to the bed, a reassurance. Mickey's mind is slow and foggy with lack of sleep, only awake now due to routine, his eyes mostly unseeing, Ian's presence a combination of scent and heat and a sharp burst of red in the otherwise muted grey that fills Mickey's bedroom.

He recalls the way Ian smiled at him the night before, the way he took Mickey into his mouth, used Mickey's body to sate his own desires; all of it bringing a grin to Mickey's face as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. He traces the curve of Ian's ear with his thumb, dips his fingers into Ian's hair so that he may lightly scratch at his scalp with the pads of his fingers, the tips of his nails. It causes Ian to snuff against his shoulder, nose wrinkling as he nuzzles his faced deeper against Mickey's skin, arm squeezing around Mickey's waist before he settling into sleep again.

Idly, Mickey wishes that Ian had awoken so that he might have made a joke about Ian being a dog, so that he could scratch harder behind Ian's ear in an attempt to get Ian to play along, get him to shake his leg as if it were a tail, so that he might've called Ian a good boy. The notion reminds him of the things he said just a few hours before, the embarrassing things, things he wouldn't say in the light of day, things he wishes he hadn't of said in the dark of night.

His face flushes — another remembrance that harks back to the night before — and Mickey is grateful that there is none around to see it. As if to spite him, Ian begins to stir, limbs tightening in their hold that they have on Mickey as Ian concaves his body inwards, stretching, letting everything go loose and heavy once he's done, smacking his lips once, twice, before squinting open his eyes to peek at Mickey from between his lashes. 

They stare at one another, Mickey's trying to will away the blush that still haunts his skin with remembered foolishness, hoping that Ian's still lost in the in-between world so that he doesn't realize Mickey's embarrassment. 

Ian reaches up to trace the line of Mickey's brow, one of the few places that hasn't been tinted red, expression considering as the tip of his finger glides across Mickey's skin. Once he's done he drops his arm back down onto Mickey's abdomen, snaking his hand down towards Mickey's groin, lightly grabbing a handful Mickey's dick, where it lies, half-hard, though if it's for want of waking up next to Ian or just because Mickey's woken up at all, Mickey's hard pressed to say. He gives Mickey a few decent squeezes, just enough to have Mickey interested in getting himself aroused fully, before pulling his hand back from there as well, starts to scratch at the dried come that has stained itself to the hair and skin of Mickey's abdomen.

"I'm stuck to you," Ian says, voice rasping with disuse. 

Mickey finally looks away from Ian's face, glancing down at where Ian's running his fingernails across his skin, movements causing Mickey's body hair to rise on edge and his skin to break out into gooseflesh. He wonders what that means: ' _stuck to you_ '. It doesn't make any sense in this context. Maybe it's just a phrase that Mickey hasn't learned yet, an expression that only a native speaker would understand. Mickey's always hated to admit when he doesn't know something, when he doesn't understand something, but sometimes it's unavoidable. It's too early for his brain to even try to parse foreign words, besides. 

"I don't understand what you mean," Mickey mutters, doing his best to stretch an arm off over the bed's edge, grabbing at his water jug without sitting up, unwanting to disrupt Ian from what he and his hands are doing. "Is it a confession?" Mickey asks once he's finally grabbed the damn thing and hefted it onto the bed next to him, curling his arm around it so that it won't tip and spill. "A sharing of feelings?"

Ian snuffs again, laughing as he presses his face back into Mickey's shoulder, an attempt to hide just how hard it is that he's laughing. His fingers have stalled in their grooming and Mickey makes a discontent noise deep in his chest. Ian peeks out from where he's hidden himself in Mickey's neck, shooting him an amused look as he goes back to work, playing with Mickey's pubic hair and massaging the skin around Mickey's cock, more platonic than anything meant to arouse.

"No," Ian answers, voice overflowing with amusement. "My dick is stuck to your hip." He twists his body away as if to prove his point, their skin catching uncomfortably as Ian's dick awkwardly pulls away from Mickey's hip, free in some places, others tackily keeping them stuck together. 

"That," Mickey drawls out slowly, laughing a bit himself, "does make a lot more sense." He helps Ian his cock away from Mickey completely, the two of the sniggering as they set to work. 

Mickey takes a deep drink of water once they're done, passing the jug to Ian and climbing up from the bed, stretching his arms up towards the ceiling to pop his back, pushing a palm on either side of his chin to crack his neck. 

Ian rises once he's done drinking as well, setting the jug down on—on _Ian's_ side of the bed, Mickey thinks charitably, although he doesn't care to dwell on deciding just whom exactly it's a charity towards. 

They leave Mickey's bedroom and make for the kitchen, sharing a rag as they wipe down their bodies in the basin there, getting rid of any dried come that they hadn't been able to flick away with their fingers whilst lying in bed. Mickey's about to turn away and walk back to the hallway when Ian grabs at his shoulder, halting him. Ian drops down onto his haunches, makes it so that he's level with Mickey's groin, and starts to wipe between Mickey's thighs, shooting a teasing expression Mickey's way once he's finished, standing up tall again. 

"You think you are clever and cute," Mickey says in his own language, enjoying the way Ian's face scrunches up as he tries to understand what Mickey's saying. He can tell from his expression that Ian knows he's being made fun of, even if he doesn't understand what exactly he being mocked _for_. "But you're only one of those things, and I'll never tell you which."

Ian shoots him an unimpressed look, put out for Mickey using Ian's language disadvantaged against him, and shoves Mickey into the wall, makes a break for the side of the house that houses his own bedroom, forcing Mickey to take off after him, their feet thudding against the wood floors. 

"Why are you chasing me!" Ian taunts, clipping his shoulder on the doorframe as dives through it, dropping prostrate onto his bed with Mickey hot on his heels.

"Why are you forcing me to punish you?" Mickey shoots back, wrestling against Ian's back, doing his best to pin Ian, dodging out from an elbow aimed at his stomach and rolling away completely when it nearly connects with his balls. "Do you have no shame!?" Mickey demands, cupping himself with both hands when he sees Ian readying himself to make a grab for them. "I should whip you."

Ian flops onto his back with his arms folded behind his head, body exposed to Mickey's gaze; he's beginning to harden, aroused from their wrestling, Mickey supposes, unless it's from Mickey's threats of violence, which—

"How hard would you do it?" Ian asks, sounding vaguely interested.

Well. 

Mickey uses Ian's defenseless position to his advantage, slapping Ian's toned belly with more force than he would typically, delighted in the way Ian's eyes widen, the sound that his breath makes as it catches still in his lungs. He spreads himself over top Ian's body, their groins touching, still damp with water, their chests brushing, Ian's heartbeat racing. 

"Come now," Mickey says gently. "Dress so that we can go to Iosif's to eat. I haven't the time to punish hedonist boys; not this early in the morning. Siebog himself wouldn't have enough hours in the day to whip the devil out of you."

He rises and leaves for his room, pretends that he doesn't see the dazed look of Ian's that trails after him. He stands in the hallway, just out of the door's line of sight, watches as Ian rises up onto his hands, shifts his weight so it only rests on one of them so that he may reach down and palm at his dick with the free one. Ian sighs and gets up off the bed, starts rummaging through his bag for clothes.

Mickey watches as Ian steps into his smallclothes, watches the way the muscles in his back and thighs work and he slips in first one leg, then the other, before Mickey forces himself to turn away for good, walks towards his side of the house, back to his own room so that he may get dressed as well.


	8. tell me anything you want, any old lie will do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking things out can ease the mind, but it doesn't change anything, not really, not in any way that matters.

There's a cat that that lives behind Grigorji and Pyotr's house. It moved in not long after Mickey purchased the land. Though, it's possible that the cat had been living there the entire time, and had merely hidden when they first surveyed the land, lying in wait to introduce itself. 

Mickey and his brothers have far too much sense to ever feed it, not even willing to share with it their scraps. His cousins are too lazy to remember to feed it daily, so they know better than to have it start expecting things from them; eventually they decided that allowing it to live behind their home was gift enough to this communal pet of theirs.

Mickey's bastard brothers are just as lazy, but their hearts are soft, seeing the cat as their own kin, a bastard in its own right, and so they leave food on their porches each day, and rub the thing whenever their paths cross. 

Originally, they'd taken to calling it Pasha. He's an excitable little thing, dashing from one house to another as if he's always got something chasing after him, a phantom with nothing better to do than keeping company with a cat. The cat's fur is short, a muted orange that can be brightened up and set ablaze in the right sort of lighting. It's always absolutely loathed Mickey.

Now, they've decided to rename him after Ian. The cat accepts the change quickly, comes easily when they call out to it using Ian's name.

Ian loves the thing, and the feeling is mutual; whenever he sits down for more than a moment the cat bolts over to him from whichever spot it'd been lurking, climbs all over Ian so that they can paw at one another. 

"Vanya," Alexi calls out, causing the cat's ears to twitch. "Ian," Alexi repeats when the cat does not come right away.

Ian scrambles up and the cat isn't far behind him, the pair of them sprinting towards the Bastards' House, crashing into Alexi with their haste. 

"He does this on purpose," Ian says stutteringly in their language, slowly working the words into his mouth before releasing them from his lips. "He waits," Ian stalls out, unable to say what he wants, so he switches back into his own tongue, "He waits for you to say our nickname and our real name, just to make sure that I'll follow after him."

Alexi stares at him for a few moments before flagging down Mickey, who'd been trying to make his way through the yard unnoticed. Ian repeats himself and Mickey translates for him, Alexi quickly nodding his agreement. 

Ian leaves his namesake in Alexi's care and heads towards Iosif's house to help make lunch. He's decided that helping to cook will be his means of repayment for Jakub teaching him their language, the best he can do until they go on another raid and he can procure some money for himself, something real pay for the lessons. 

Mickey turns and finds that his brother has snuck up on him, manifested out of nowhere. The look on his face holds no well-meaning for Mickey, but he's too proud to run away to stave off a conversation with his elder brother, not when he's looking at him directly in the face, that is.

Jakub's staring at Ian's back as he heads into the Brothers' House, wrapping his hand around Mickey's arm to guide him away from their circle of houses and towards the forest. "Come," he says, though it's just a placation, his grip leaves no room for argument on Mickey's end.

Jakub gets like this whenever Ian acts this way, especially now that he goes running with the cat. All the other love it, laugh giddily at how Ian plays along, have taken to scratching behind his ears so that the cat gets jealous of their attentions, begins to meow, demands its own rubdowns. 

Truth be told, it worries Mickey too, but sometimes Ian will make a detour while he's tearing through the yards, will catch sight of Mickey nearby and will turn so that he's able to press a kiss onto Mickey's cheek or chin or forehead, any part of him, just so long that he can get it done within a second, anything that doesn't require him to deviate from his path so much so that he winds up losing to the cat. 

Mickey will smile then, amused and pleased with himself, ignoring his family's embarrassing hoots and hollers, and will continue on to wherever it had been that he'd been originally going, forgetting the unease that Ian's actions would bring up within him until the next time it happened, the cycle repeated. 

Jakub has no such form of distraction, picks up on more and more of Ian's oddities without anyone to share it with. Mickey does his best to avoid him, the first time in years that he hasn't wanted to seek his brother's council. Whenever Jakub gets _that_ look on his face after watching Ian, Mickey's first instinct is to invent a reason to run to town or partake on a quick hunting trip, anything to get away from his brother and whatever revelations he feels the need to share. It would seem that his luck has run out on that front. 

They journey deep enough into the forest that they pass the wild herbs Iosif cultivates, pass the area where they get most of their firewood, finally stopping deep in the brush where they're impossible to spot from any of the houses, far past the point where they need to worry about being overheard. 

"There's something wrong with him," Jakub says, straight to the point.

"He favors you best of all, there'd have to be something wrong with him," Mickey jokes half-heartedly, unwilling to allow this conversation to come easily, more than willing to remind Jakub of how much Ian adores him, how it would hurt him should he come to find that Jakub has found some fault in him, invented or otherwise.

"And I him," Jakub admits with a frown, guilty. "I'd trade all our bastard brothers and worthless cousins for just one more of him, his work ethic alone would be worth mother's ghost terrorizing us for abandoning family," he jests, allowing Mickey his attempt at lightening the mood.

Mickey nods, toeing at the dirt. He'd only meant to go to speak to Grigorji, before Jakub ambushed him, so he hadn't put on boots. The soil is cool and soft beneath the soles of his feet.

"What's wrong with him then?" Mickey finally asks, wanting this conversation to be over, hoping with all hopes that he'll be able to ignore whatever argument Jakub puts forth, that this won't ruin things for him. Mickey's always been skilled at ruining things all on his own, he doesn't need his brother's aid, not what that.

"I don't know," Jakub admits, and Mickey wants to strangle him. "He's so childish, sometimes, but he's not simple. He's picking up on our language very quickly, and sometimes we will speak on battle strategy, and it feels as if he knows more than even I in that regard. I cannot find fault with his intellect." 

Jakub pauses, eyeing Mickey up. Mickey knows this will be the part that he won't want to hear, does his best to ready himself for it. 

"And I mean, you two," Jakub starts, looks anywhere but at Mickey's eyes. "You two have a lot of sex, right?" 

Mickey freezes, mind stalling out before he throws himself at Jakub, knocks him down to the ground, tries to get his hands past his brother's upraised arms so that he can shove his face into the dirt, hopefully forcing him to choke on it until he dies.

" _Fucking_ —" Jakub bites out, dodging away from Mickey's hands. "Misha will you fucking stop!" He gets his legs around Mickey's middle and flips them, uses his greater weight to pin Mickey down on the forest floor. "If you didn't want us to notice then maybe you should not let him pull you behind your house so that he can fuck you in the middle of the day," Jakub says, exasperated. 

"Or into the forest, or behind the stable," Jakub continues onwards with his list, uncaring of Mickey's mortification; Mickey had honestly thought they'd been successful in their stealth, but he had obviously been misguided in those assumptions. "Or in mine and Osya's damned kitchen," Jakub finishes, "the place where we all get our food from Mickey! And that was all just what I noticed yesterday!"

Mickey continues to struggle, vowing to himself that he'll tear his brother's throat out with his teeth as soon as he's free. 

"I know that the two of you are young, but I can see it in your eyes that even you're worn down by it. It's not natural to desire _that much_ , no matter what your age is. Not every day."

Mickey sighs, long, willing away his shame because this has been something eating away at him, a worry in his mind that rears its ugly head with each day that passes. Whenever they're actually fucking Mickey has no complaints, feels like he can keep up with Ian for hours, but when they're done he's left exhausted, want's nothing more than to sleep, but he can't let himself slack from his usual duties. He's existing on far less sleep than he needs, finding himself stretched thin. It's been three weeks and Mickey hasn't once yet found himself wanting to tell Ian no, but if things keep up the way they have been then he knows that he'll need to start, and he's fearful that Ian won't want him any longer if Mickey can't give him what he wants. 

Mickey tries to turn himself and Jakub lets him, hovering over him as Mickey resettles on his back, seating himself on Mickey's stomach once he's laying flat on the ground.

"What is there to do then?" Mickey asks. He remembers back to when they were younger, when he looked up to Jakub in all things, when he believed that his brother could solve all things, make anything better. That period of their lives still feels as if it lasted longer than really it had, Jakub comforting him, leading him, all the way up to when Jakub hadn't been able to do it any longer. When Mickey had to step up and do things most decent men are unable to do. From then onwards everyone looked to Mickey, as monstrous as he is. 

It's novel to feel this dependent on Jakub again, to need his brother to explain the world's workings to him, to solve his problems for him, to shield his heart from being hurt. It's frightening too, because Mickey knows better than he did back then, knows there are things that his eldest brother can't solve, and Mickey knows that even though he has it in himself to make choices and take actions that others are unable to take upon themselves, he doesn't always like the way it ends up. He's fearful of what it will take to fix Ian — if he can even be fixed — and what it'll do to him if they manage it, what it'll do to Mickey. 

"I don't know," Jakub says again, before smiling down at his brother. "I do feel better talking about it; knowing you aren't blind to it. I worried he put some sort of spell over you," he teases. Mickey groans.

"It fucking feels like it at times!" Mickey admits, bringing both his hands up to scrub through his hair. "I'd thought about going back to sea last week, but I want Ian to know our language better first, in case something happens where we can't translate for him to the others. And then I realized that it would be hard for us to —," he fumbles for words, unwilling to say it outright, "to, well. It would be hard with everyone around on that small boat, but I don't have it in me to tell him no, and Yasha, he is without shame. If I so much as suspected Aloysha or Tosya or fucking Grishka watching us then I'd kill them, brother." Jakub stares at him, unimpressed. 

"Fine, maim them," Mickey concedes, after they frown at one another for a while, feeling the part of little brother more now than he had throughout the rest conversation, with his brother sitting on him to keep him from running away as he confesses his childish jealousy, as if they still hadn't lost their milkteeth. 

A branch snaps, the sound echoing around them before the bushes start to tremble. Mickey and Jakub look toward the noise, knowing it to be too loud and obvious for a predator, wondering which of their idiot kin has come out to fetch them.

Instead it's Ian who tumbles through, raising his eyebrows at the sight of them. "I've finished cooking, come eat now," he says. "Were the two of you fighting or is there something about your culture you have not told me? My people frown on this." Ian jokes, though his voice holds a possessive note that Mickey doesn't mind. It's nice that Ian is jealous of Jakub for once when Mickey has become used to staring enviously at his own brother while the pair of them practice Ian's lessons together.

Jakub bends down to press a kiss to Mickey's forehead, smacking loudly, something he used to do when Mickey was younger, his oldest trick, one that he used to embarrass Mickey in front of their friends, a habit he kept up far too long, into their foray into manhood, because it never failed to cause Mickey grief whenever he was around any of Jakub's friends that he was attracted to. 

Jakub's knees pop as he rises and climbs over Mickey's prone form, touching Ian's shoulder as he goes to stand at Ian's side, visibly impatient to join up with the rest of their family so that he can eat. Ian reaches a hand to Mickey, helps him up from the ground, patting at his back to help remove the leaves and dirt that had gotten stuck in his clothes and hair during his and Jakub's wrestling. 

Once he's deemed clean enough, Mickey turns to follow after his brother, who'd started walking nearly as soon as Mickey had risen to hit feet, though Mickey can't blame him for his haste, feels absolutely ravenous himself. Ian's hand shoots out and grabs Mickey's into his own, threading their fingers together, sending a smug look Jakub's way. Jakub looks to be beside himself with amusement at Ian's display, but blessedly his holds his tongue and keeps his mirth to himself. Ian keeps hold of Mickey's hand as they make their way through the bushes and trees, back towards the circle of houses.


	9. daylight sleeper, bloody reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> False alarms cause undue stress, do nobody any good. Except, a false alarm means that something _is_ working, and something working means that it is possible for it to break, and that surely is cause for alarm.

Half a day goes past before Mickey takes notice of Ian's absence. Surveying his brothers finds him no closer to Ian's whereabouts, so he doubles back to their half-circle of houses, hoping to suss Ian out from whatever place he's hidden himself away at.

Mickey's too proud to call out Ian's name, doesn't want to play into Ian's hands should this prove to be a juvenile ploy for attention. That damned cat would be more likely to come running if Mickey did shout for Ian, leaving little point in trying anyway.

He finds Ian just beyond the back of what's become _their_ home — like the bastards have the Bastard House, and Mickey's brothers and cousins have the Brother House, Cousin House — Ian spread out under the shade a tree, unmoving. Mickey is so struck through with terror that he cannot bring his legs to move, frightened at what he'll find should he risk stepping any closer. 

"I—Ian," he manages to choke out, voice snapping around the vowel, turning Ian's name into something much larger, much harsher than it actually is; a grand, discordant thing. He watches as Ian's foot twitches in response, the small movement forcing every inch of air from Mickey's lungs in one giant exhale, so fast and strong that he feels a tangible ache in his chest, his ribs bruised from it, the muscles of his abdomen sore from weathering it. Mickey drops to his knees at Ian's side, lightly presses a hand to his shoulder, gently trying to get Ian to face him. Ian puts up no resistance, the slightest tug of Mickey's grip causing him to roll completely onto his back.

"Are you all right?" Mickey asks, trying to mask his concern, his discomfort. He would ask this to any of his brothers, cousins and bastards too, would probably even ask it to a stranger slumped over on the side of the road. He is without many things, but his soul still has the barest level of compassion, surely. This is what Mickey tells himself, trying to sate the abnormally high level of terror still seizing him, grasping tight at this base of his neck, its nails digging deep into the flesh of Mickey's shoulders. "Do you feel ill?" 

Ian wrinkles his nose and peeks his eyes open, their usually bright luster seemingly lost, at least to Mickey, to whom they look dull and matte. Mickey fears that Ian has caught something that turns a person blind, suddenly and without any gradual dwindling in vision quality. Did the world go dark for Ian — this world that through Ian's eyes always seems so bright and sharp and clear — and had him drop to ground at the shock of it, feinted, possibly, or crouched down to his knees so that he wouldn't run into anything, or to ward off the possibility of wondering off, stop himself from getting lost in the forest? Had he been waiting for Mickey to come find him? Has Mickey let him down by taking far too long to notice his absence?

"I'm fine," Ian says, words ghosting out from between his lips, rasping like they typically do when he's just woken up, early in the hours of the morning. Mickey wonders if this is the first time Ian's spoken all day, feels guilty, because he can't recall if he spoke to Ian when they woke that morning. Mickey was preoccupied, eager to join his brothers and finish their work on the sails of Mickey's ship, hopeful that they'd be done with it before nightfall, one step closer to readying themselves for another trip out to sea. He was up and moving the moment his eyes twitched open, quick to dress and be out the door, over to Iosif's for breakfast.

Ian has shared so many parts of his body with Mickey — his lips, his mouth, his cock, his fingers, the hard planes of his stomach, the soft, tight skin of his inner thighs, as well as the coiled, near-blond hairs that hide there — yet still, Mickey finds it hard to press the back of his hand to Ian's forehead, his cheek, checking for fever. It feels too intimate, to tender, gives away too much of what Mickey never wanted to give away, and now that he _has_ given it away — so obviously that his family has noticed, that Mickey himself has noticed — it gives Ian too much power to him. 

If anything, Ian feels cooler than he normally runs. Mickey wishes he'd called for Iosif or Jakub to come with him; they know better than him, the signs of sickness.

"I'm fine," Ian repeats, finally raising himself up, sitting back against the trunk of the tree. "I just — woke up feeling tired, you know?" he asks Mickey. Mickey does know, has had enough nightmares and has dealt with enough stress to know that having slept does not go hand-and-hand with gaining rest. 

"How much—" Ian starts, stops, clears his throat, rubs at his eyes, which still look dull, rimmed in red as they are, like maybe he'd been crying, out here under this tree, but Mickey will never ask after that, doesn't want to know the answer; there's nothing he can do to help Ian sleep better at night, the few things he does have control over, things like Ian's freedom, the chances of him ever seeing his family again, they're things that Mickey isn't willing to _fix_ , so it's better that he not inquire after them all together, leaves that box unopened. "How much work did I miss? What are you doing now?"

"Not much," Mickey lies. "We've just stopped to eat. I decided to break early to see what wickedness you'd gotten yourself entangled in before those bastards could come warn you into faked productivity."

"Must be nice, to be such a leader; leaving early, as you please," Ian comments, sounding more like himself, if not all the way, then getting there. "I could do with some eating."

Mickey stands and gives Ian a hand to help him do the same. "Is there ever a time you _couldn't_ do with eating? If I did not know first hand of your stamina, I'd suspect you to be some sort of gluttonous, island nymph." Mickey traces his fingers over the new sets of freckles dotting along the length of Ian's arms, bloomed from the constant work Ian's been doing in the sun, the orange of them so obvious against the paleness of his skin, the blue of his veins just under the surface. Mickey works his way down from Ian's shoulders to the tips of his fingers, and once he's finally reached them, he breaks contact to lightly brush his fingertips along the front of Ian's trousers, stroking the thin fabric, at where the head of his dick rests just beneath the cloth. Ian shies away — a first — and Mickey frowns.

"And what's your excuse then, for not having shown up at all?" Mickey asks, grabbing firmly at Ian's hip, lightly scratching at Ian's skin through his tunic. Ian stands firm, his momentary balk just a few seconds earlier completely replaced with his usual steadfast nature. Mickey wonders if his touch had been harder than he intended, and that was why Ian flinched away.

"The leader's happiness is tied to my own, so I may do as I please," Ian decides, smiling at last, his eyes curving, the pair of them smiling, too. Mickey feels pleased to see it, proud, though it was not him who made the joke, Ian's mirth found in his own words.


	10. wouldn't turn to another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't hurt.

Mickey keeps an eye on Ian, tells his brothers to do the same, though he doesn't go into detail about what they should be looking for, why it is that they're looking for it. He instructs for them to report back on anything strange, anything worrying, and leaves it at that.

Their next voyage can be prolonged no longer, no matter the amount of unease it settles upon Mickey's stomach, the thought of setting sail when Mickey hasn't perfected sussed out what it is that ails Ian. He likes for things to be fixed and shined and properly sorted before he goes off to battle. It doesn't seem possible this time.

Mickey goes about his usual routines with trepidation, reluctance making each practiced task take twice its usual length, settling itself deep in his bones and keeping him awake at night, Ian oblivious, uncaring — or both — next to him each night in bed, oftentimes sleeping hard, for as long as he can manage, until Mickey forces him into wakefulness. 

"Perhaps it's in his blood to get this way?" Iosif guesses, loading up the last bit of grain onto the back of their cart. He isn't nearly as concerned as Mickey is — as Jakub is; has always been on to believe that things are they are because that's just the way they are, that nothing and no one can be changed, nor can they be bent, broken. "It's nearly winter; plants and animals aren't the only things to slow down as the sun hides."

Mickey grunts but doesn't bother to voice his disagreement, turns back to his home to give one last pass through, mindful of each room, giving his eyes a chance to spot something previously forgotten. Satisfied that he grabbed all that he will need, he rejoins his kin in the clearing centered between their houses, heading back to his brother and coming to a stop flippantly, tossing and errand hand around the width of his shoulders. "Don't burn down my house, Osip," Mickey tells Iosif, as he has come to always do.

Iosif smiles good-naturally, as _he_ always does, and says, "If you die it will all become mine; why would I risk the value of my future property?" It makes Mickey smile.

"Others may read your face, but," Mickey warns, "God knows your heart."

Iosif's smile turns soft, and he lifts his hands to cup both of Mickey's cheeks, his thumbs resting in the dark circles that've taken residence under Mickey's eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, but obviously thinks the better of it, shaking his head and squeezing Mickey's face before letting go. 

Mickey decides that's the end of their conversation, swings himself onto his horse, letting it get used to his weight while he waits for the rest of his family to say goodbye. He watches Ian bury his face in Iosif's shoulder for a few seconds, pulling back with his eyes shining and red-rimmed. 

Iosif stares at Ian, and to Mickey it looks as if his brother is seeing Ian through fresh eyes, looking at him for the first time. Mickey wonders what it is that he sees. "The darkness is deepest under the lamp," Iosif's voice is firm as he speaks, decisive, and he pats Ian one final time before turning his attentions to Grigorij, grinning.


	11. pleased to be lonesome, quiet and clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because things are muted — just because there are things you can't _see_ — doesn't mean they aren't still there, aren't still waiting for you to notice them, to come back to them, to give them your attentions again.

Mickey had hoped that the sea — the fresh air, the _adventure_ —would do Ian good, would calm his moods, would breathe life back into this listless body of his, one that seems to go on only because it's too young and fit to lay down and seep back into the earth.

It doesn't. 

Ian sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, claims to've been taken in with sea sickness, though Mickey nor his kin believe a word of it, though they don't speak on it, not to Ian, and certainly not to each other, happy to believe in a lie afforded to them, one that seems so much less frightening than any possible reality. Mickey frowns at him, not unkindly, yet still excuses him from any duties, lets Ian hide away under the deck and sleep his fill, praying that one morning he may awaken to an Ian that is free of this spell, of this darkness that has claimed him. Mickey's mind is divided, part of it keeping track of their coordinates, what ports they're near, their mission plan, while the other, the greatest part of it, is always with Ian, hidden in the darkness below deck, a useless witness to Ian's suffering, holding vigil in ways that his mortal body cannot.

At night, Mickey sleeps next to his brother up on deck and tells himself that he's reading Ian's signs, giving him space, although Ian hasn't asked for it. Mickey shouts at the voices in his head, the ones that judge him, that have him mulling over all his choices, even after he's made them; denies and denies to himself that he isn't running away like a coward, avoiding Ian's misery so that he can stay just that much more ignorant to it. At home, in their bed, Ian had slept curled away from him, a sign that he'd wanted space, Mickey assures to himself. In the deepest part of the night, right before Mickey's about to drift off to the sound of his cousin's snoring, he thinks over Ian choosing to stay in their bed, curled away, but still there, still present, if only in his body, of Ian choosing to stay there rather than returning to his own bed on the other side of the house, and just what _that_ means, and how he might be failing Ian by being such a coward, for not staying with him below deck, by not holding him close and keeping him safe. 

They arrive at Getae a few days after they've left Veleti, dropping off a shipment of goods for some of the merchants back home, restocking some of their own supplies before they venture farther north, to Saami. Mickey delegates tasks before they've even reached the dock, pairing everyone up. He starts to tell Pyotr to stay behind and watch the ship, but Jakub speaks over him, loud and quickly enough that it doesn't seem like he's overruling Mickey's leadership when he tells Pyotr to join him on some side quest that Mickey hasn't been informed of and doesn't care to question. 

Jakub darts below deck once they've been allotted a bay and have started to unload their cargo, returning with Ian, bleary-eyed and squinting into the early morning sunlight. He sits Ian on the middle of the deck, pats his head a few times. "Ian will be watching the ship while we go about our day; won't you, Vanya?" Jakub instructs. Ian blinks up at him owlishly, obviously the first he's being told of his duties for the day, but he nods all the same, even leans into Jakub's hand for a few seconds, his eyes slipping closed for a few beats longer than what could be considered a blink. 

Everything is settled from that point, all of them too glad to see Ian functioning as a member of the crew again to bother pointing out how unwise it is for Ian to watch over their livelihood when he's so visibly out of it. Mickey sells the wares he'd been carrying and tucks the profits away deeply, so that none can lift them from them. He asks around the square to see if there's any in need of services provided only by men such of himself. Mickey's reputation means that he is never without employ, and it grants him the power to be selective in the jobs he takes on. 

There are five that have him grinning, merely the thought of the excitement they would bring making his blood thrum, but in the end he turns them down, telling himself that he can't commit to anything when he has no idea how long his current assignment by the Saami will last, that it has nothing to do with Ian. _Ian_ , a word that encompasses this feeling inside him, forever flashing, demanding attention at the forefront of his mind, big and bright and blazing, so very juxtaposed to Ian's current reality, the ghost of him that haunts Mickey's ship.

On the way back, Mickey's eyes are drawn to a merchant's booth. The seller is from the far East and at the center of his wares there is a coat so finely made that Mickey would never think to buy it for himself, its color teetering between _earth_ and a dark, muted orange. Mickey buys it without allowing himself to think too hard on it, tells the seller to wrap it in a scrap of cloth so that it doesn't attract notice, a safeguard against not only thieves, but his family's keen eyes as well. 

Ian's still sat in the middle of the deck when Mickey returns, alone, as if the gods finally allowed Mickey a sliver of their good favor because they knew the task he'd set himself on was a good one, even if it isn't exactly selfless. 

Mickey hurries to sit down next to Ian, tells himself that he isn't disappointed when Ian fails to crowd into his space and slot their lips together, instead just stares at Mickey like he can't possibly imagine a single thing that Mickey might want to converse with him over. They stare at each other in silence for a while, Mickey drinking up the sight of Ian, starved for the image of Ian's face after not seeing him in anything but the dark for the past few days, the slight slivers of light that snuck through the floorboards to illuminate Ian's face never enough to sate Mickey's thirst to just _see_ him, to bask in Ian.

Eventually Mickey comes back to himself, says, "I heard your voice crowing in my head the entire walk back, so do not think I need to hear it from you now." He keeps his voice light, teasing, so that Ian won't know that Mickey would kill a dozen men with his bare hands without thought, just to hear Ian speak delightedly in the way Mickey had become accustomed; that he would cut off his own nose if it meant Ian would jest and tease him over Mickey's sentimentality — over _anything_ again. He shoves the package into Ian's lap and keeps a bemused smile spread across his lips, hiding his disappointment. 

Ian opens it slowly, Ian opens it slowly, stills once he sees what's inside. He looks up at Mickey blankly before inhaling one long, shuddery breath, and that's when something inside him breaks, and tears start dripping out of the corners of his eyes; big, fat ones, slipping down the sharp juts of his cheekbones, the first hint of emotion that Mickey's seen in far too long. Mickey watches, aghast and shocked, unsure of what to do, because although Ian's undoubtedly crying, it's unlike any weeping Mickey's ever bore witness to. His shoulders aren't wracked with sobs, his nose isn't running, his cheeks keep their pale pallor, no blood rushing up to heat and color them. Just tears, like a well that's been pumped too many times and still gushes water, even when there's no one there with a bucket to collect any of it. 

"What," Mickey starts to ask, the words dying on his tongue, because asking _whatever could be the matter?_ feels like the worst question he could give voice too; something's been troubling Ian for weeks, and it's bad enough that Mickey has no idea what that thing could be, but worse would be asking about it, when he's obviously been unable to help soothe whatever ache it is. "No, no — _quit_ ," he says, changing tactics. 

Mickey shakes the jacket fully from its cloth wrapping and uses the lesser fabric to wipe at Ian's face. "Are all boys on that damned Island of yours just like you? Quick to laugh, quick to weep," Mickey babbles, trying to fill up the silence. "Has Osip told you yet of how I did not smile until I had lived nine summers? It's not a fable, I can assure you of that." 

"No," Ian says, and for once there's a hint of emotion in his voice, a gleeful disbelief tinting his words, so very muted from how he normally is, a shadow of how he usually grabs hold to bits and pieces of Mickey's past, but still wondrous to Mickey's eyes, because a shadow means that the real thing is still there for to block the light to cast a shadow in the first place, so much better than the memories Mickey's been holding on to, afraid that they might've been all that was left of a side of Ian that he so loved, and barely had the time to know before it was gone. 

"It's true," Mickey argues, taking one last swipe at the corner of Ian's eyes. "Come now, take off this," he instructs, tugging at the old jacket of Anton's that he'd loaned to Ian for the trip, "and put the new one on. If my If my kin ask, say that you asked me to buy a proper one for you. I'm loathe to say it, but if you wanted to joke that you promised me _favors_ in return, I wouldn't begrudge you for it, just this once. Anything is better than them knowing I saw it and bought it for you without a second thought."

"Did you really," Ian says, actually smiling. It takes all of Mickey's willpower to act like nothing's changed, like he doesn't want to scream at the sky, or punch through the hull of the ship, or launch himself into Ian's lap, grab hold of him and clutch their bodies together so tightly to prevent Ian's spirit from escaping again. 

He takes hold of Ian's borrowed jacket and clutches it tightly between his fingers to ensure that he does none of those things. "Did I really," Mickey echoes, and leaves it at that.


	12. a sun to maybe dissipate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is a crutch truly such a bad thing; should it be forsaken even if it is the only means through which a person may function?

Ian's renewed energy proves itself to be short-lived. 

There is a marked difference, however — one that has Mickey far less fearful than he had been even just hours previously, a pinprick of light to guide him through the harsh, dark unknown that he has found himself navigating through as of late. 

The space between them is now gone, Ian pressing close to Mickey's side, seeming to draw strength from the contact between their skin, catching hold of it in any manner he is able. He crowds his taller frame against Mickey's back, slipping his hand up underneath the hem of Mickey's tunic to press his still ghoulishly pale hands against the markedly tanned skin of Mickey's stomach, clutching tight, digging his fingers into the strong flesh at Mickey’s core. His longer legs prop against the outside of Mickey's, his thighs ensuring that Mickey's body is enclosed within his own. 

Mickey wonders idly if Ian truly is taking something from him, and by what manner it is that he is doing so. It is conceivable to see Ian as a plant and he the sun, providing warmth and reassurance at no cost to his own well-being. Or perhaps Mickey has become host to Ian, and Ian will take everything he can from him until Mickey is left bereft, nothing but a husk, and only then will Ian be fully replenished to his old self, and able to move on. To Mickey, it seems like such a small price to pay. 

And a worthy sacrifice, besides. There are far worse fates than spending the rest of his days swathed in Ian, even if those days might be marked. 

So he allows Ian to get his fill, ignoring the great sense of relief that seems to flow endlessly throughout him at having Ian's touch renewed, as if he himself draws strength from the connection of their bodies. He tips his head back and breathes in slowly, contented, as Ian noses along the length of his neck, into his hair. He hadn't realized just how closely his mood had aligned itself with Ian's, but now he can see that there has been a marked change in himself as much as there has been within Ian. 

When Mickey has to check on something below deck, revitalized and eager to show some sign of productivity, Ian trails after him, close enough that his bare feet catch Mickey's heels regularly with either step that they take. 

In the time it takes for anyone to return to the vessel, Mickey has rearranged the holding cabin so that there is room for their restocked supplies. 

Ian has ceased cuddling him from behind and instead keeps an iron grip on Mickey's fingers, their hands tangled together while they bathe in the sun’s meager light, having returned back to the deck, Ian swathed in Mickey this time, his taller body hunched and sat between Mickey’s splayed legs, his back half-turned into Mickey’s chest. He's pressing lingering, closed mouth kisses to Ian's freckled cheeks when Jakub hauls himself onto the deck, catching Mickey's gaze over Ian's head. Mickey does not cease in his attentions, unwilling to relinquish this tender mood that has settled over them, fearful that someone else in their space will revive the spell that had seemed to smother the flame of Ian’s spirit, feeling as if the shared contact, their shared strength, will keep Ian from drawing back into himself.

"Brother," Jakub greets. "Vanya." He hesitates a few moments before walking closer and running a hand through Ian's hair quickly, a pale comparison to the way all of Mickey's family would pet Ian not even a month ago. Ian turns to stare up at him, blinking slowly a few times, as if unseeing, before smiling slowly, shyly, and then turning back to press his face into Mickey's shoulder. 

"It will be a day, perhaps two, before all our supplies are readied," Jakub says. "I've sent the others to an inn. We can ask the port master to watch the ship for tonight; he still thinks kindly of us after the aid we extended the summer past, though who knows how long that will last with Grishka and Alyosha with us this time around. We should embrace it while it is still extended to us." 

"Mickey and I will stay here." Ian's voice is quiet, but firm, answering before Mickey is able. 

Mickey frowns, tightening his grip on their still clasped hands. "It will be cold on these waters tonight," he says. The last thing Ian needs is to catch ill. They cannot afford to return home, but that is surely what Mickey will do in order to ensure Ian's health. Iosif is the only one in their family with any skill at tending to those who are unwell, is the only one Mickey would entrust Ian to besides. 

He knows that his kin are all fond of Ian, but their good graces extend only so far when money is involved, and should Ian prove to be a stumbling block to their livelihoods, their resentment will be quick to form and grow. Mickey is under no illusions of what it is he will do to ensure his own safety and happiness, to ensure _Ian's_ safety and happiness, though he is far from keen to be put in such a situation again, should those interests contrast to those of his family. 

"We will warm each other," Ian says, voice colored with the specter of his usual arrogance, and it is that which has Mickey's resolve folding. Perhaps Ian will fall ill, and Mickey will be forced to cancel their current means of employ to see him tended to. Perhaps it will cost him a bastard, or mayhap a cousin. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps: all of it seems a worthy gamble in the face of Ian regaining more of himself. "Besides," Ian adds, "I have my new coat. I doubt I'll ever be cold again."

Jakub works at catching Mickey's eye. Once he does and sees the expression coloring Mickey’s face, he seems to accept that he'll be returning alone this night. "That you do," he agrees. "And how it does look so lovely on you, Vanya." He leaves not long after.

Mickey takes care in checking the deck, reassuring himself that nothing of importance has been left unattended so that an opportunistic thief will be hard pressed to make off with such things of value without waking them from sleep. He does his rounds twice after realizing that for most of his first attempt he had been distracted by Ian, more affectionate now, who had been running his fingers through Mickey's hair, scratching his fingers about Mickey's scalp. It takes a concentrated effort, but his second is more fruitful than the first, and he is sure that all their belongings are secure. 

Ian's beginning to flag by the time Mickey’s done, though the sun is only just making its way to set, and the days are shorter in these winter months, and Ian hasn't been awake all that long; it would worry Mickey, but he finds that he himself has begun to tire as well. It has been a trying day, Mickey thinks. For Ian especially, with the crying he had done. Mickey finds that there is an eagerness in him to bed down for the night, for it has been too long since Ian and he have slept in one another's arms. 

Mickey guides them both down into the hold, where there is space enough now that it is empty and waiting to be restocked. He makes for them a nest of blankets, some stolen from Jakub and Anton's belongings, great woolen things that they prefer to use even in the summers. "Remind me to buy us some woolen bedding tomorrow," Mickey says as he spreads them out along the wooden floor. "They'll smell of the sea the moment the air touches them, but once we're on the open water all will smell of the sea, and you won't mind." It’s nervous prattle, Mickey filling up the space in all the ways he’d gotten used to Ian doing, trying to recreate that easy sense of being between them, even if he must pick up Ian’s usual role. 

Ian hums and then spreads himself overtop the blankets once Mickey is finished, and sets about undoing the bindings of his trousers. Mickey feels his mouth go dry. "You should sleep clothed," he warns. "The sun still shines and already the air is chilled. Ian, it will be much too cold for you once the night has truly settled in."

His heeding goes ignored, and soon enough Ian's body is displayed for him in full. "Come," Ian says, and Mickey does, without a second thought, draping himself over Ian. 

He's undressed this way, laying flat on Ian's chest, Ian's hands worming between them to undo his lacings, Ian's feet coming up to drag and kick off Mickey's trousers, to pull the shirts from over Mickey's head, until they are left belly to belly, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. 

Ian's hands reach down and cradle the curve of Mickey's behind. He begins to roll his hips, grinding himself up against Mickey's body. Mickey feels a sense of homecoming, feels all the air torn from his lungs, and grinds himself down against Ian. 

He is nearly halfway to completion when he realizes that Ian's arousal isn't pressing into his abdomen as Mickey's is into Ian. He makes a noise, confused, his mind thick with lust after neglecting this part of himself for such a time, after his body had only just gotten used to being sated multiples times each day. Ian shushes him, bringing one of his hands up to Mickey's mouth and dipping two fingers between his lips. 

Mickey sucks and licks at them, dutifully. Ian gives him a while to get lost in the feeling of having his mouth full again before pulling them free and wasting no time in dropping his hand back down to their sides, slipping his fingers into Mickey's body. Mickey comes from the sensation of Ian spreading his fingers wide and then bending them just so, knuckles rubbing at the inside of him. By the time that his body finishes its orgasm he's laughing, embarrassed; the amount of slick between them would otherwise give thought to Ian having come alongside him, if Mickey didn’t know better. 

He licks his lips and asks, "Why didn't you?" Trailing off, unsure. 

"I did." Ian's voice is calm, sated. "Through you, I did." His fingers are still inside of Mickey, palm cupped to the swell of his ass, fingers lightly rubbing, before pulling free. 

Mickey stays on top of him, quiet, reflective, drawing strength from the connection of their skin, recalls the first time that they had lain together, how Ian's cock had been stuck lightly to Mickey's side when they had awoken. How they had laughed and joked as they pulled apart, how happy both Ian and he had been in that moment, how playful they had been as they washed. He wonders if a similar fate will greet them in the morning, finds himself longing for it. 

"Mickey." Ian noses at Mickey's cheek, drags his hands up along Mickey's spine, fingers gripping Mickey's shoulder blades. "It's cold."

It causes Mickey to laugh, a loud bark of a thing. He squeezes Ian tightly and then raises up on his hands and knees, stares down into Ian's face. "I don't know why you refuse to listen to me, you whelp." He crawls over to the side and begins to gather Ian's clothes from where he'd deposited them earlier, taking care to throw Ian’s newly gifted jacket behind him so that it lands directly on Ian’s face, covering the slight glimpse of a smile of a smile pulling up at the corners of his mouth. "One day you'll see that I'm rarely wrong."


	13. washed in the rain no longer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prayer is a wish is a dream.

Jakub ensures that it requires the full length of their original estimate for the ship to finish being restocked, dragging their stay in Getae into a third day before they can dawdle no longer and must again take to the sea. 

He guides Ian through the motions of undocking, gentle hands paired with an even kinder voice sharing instruction on how best to evade distracted captains and lesser crews as they make their way into open water, how best to take care that their own sails catch the northern wind just as the bow lists ever so slightly west — a trick that will save them need of navigating an outcrop of islands further in their journey, something only those who have traversed such waters many a time before would know. 

Mickey smiles at them from where he's sat further up the deck. "Training your replacement?" He has to shout to be heard over the howling of the wind and crashing of the seas. 

"That I should be so cursed," Jakub returns, voice crowing. Ian casts him a smile from over his shoulder and yells, "Blessed! He means blessed."

Jakub shoves Ian away from him, Ian turning the momentum as a means to return himself to Mickey's side, long legs taking great loping steps that seem to Mickey's eyes not unlike a dance, gait handling the rolling of the deck as if Ian had been born of the water itself. Mickey stares, transfixed, and isn't the only one. 

"What odds would be given for Vanya being a vodianyk?" Grigorij questions. He says it loud so that Mickey may hear, for there is no purpose in him ever speaking unless Mickey is to hear it.

"Perhaps bagiennik?" Alexi joins in, though he is tending to a length of rope, distracted by it. It keeps his attentions set to a useful task for which Mickey is grateful, for it stops him from aiding Grigorji fully in this bout of teasing. Grigorji turns back to his own work, no enjoyment to be found at attacking Mickey singlehandedly.

Ian has reached him by then and Mickey brings their mouths together wetly, shoving both his hands up the back of Ian's shirt, hidden by the jacket Mickey had purchased for him, a mark of Mickey's ownership just as sure and true as the marks Mickey wishes to suck into Ian's skin. It feels an eternity since they had last lain together properly, Ian just as frantic as he, a time that seems so long ago now, when Ian had welcomed the brand of Mickey's mouth on his skin alongside the tiny pinpricks of color that had been tattooed seemingly endlessly across Ian's skin by the gods themselves. 

Mickey kisses him soundly, turning to nuzzle his nose into Ian's cheek once their mouths part, reveling in the warmth of their bodies. "Veles," he says, the sound of it nearly consumed by the crash of a wave breaking against their stern, for Mickey does not speak merely so that his kin may hear it. It is enough for him that Ian does. 

Hands come up to cradle Mickey's cheeks, Ian pulling him more firmly into his chest so that he may rest his chin atop Ian's head. "I don't know any of these beings," Ian says. "Bagnecks, vogyanks, Veles. Are they loathsome? A blessing?"

Mickey laughs into the skin of Ian's throat, tips his head up and says, "Bagiennik." Ian returns his amusement and repeats the name. Mickey kisses the curve of his jaw in reward. "Vodianyk." Ian is dutiful in his repetition, as is Mickey in his retribution. "It matters not," Mickey promises. He uses the grip of his fingertips on the skin of Ian's back to spur Ian into sitting himself down on the deck, Mickey attempting to sit astride his lap in a way that seems commanding, as if Ian was a throne for Mickey to seat himself, as if that would keep his kin from teasing him for it.

"How can it not matter?" Ian asks. "It's your religion."

"The religion of my people," Mickey allows. "I am forsaken from it and so it is no longer mine, just as I am no longer a subject which they must suffer."

"Why did you claim me to be Veles, then?" 

Mickey returns his nose to the skin of Ian's neck, cheek, behind his ear so that he may nuzzle into the sweet-sweat scent of Ian's hair. "Veles was always my favorite. He would always answer my prayers." Mickey drags a hand through Ian's hair, scratches his scalp and smiles when Ian hums; Mickey begrudges his kin many things, but he cannot find fault in their encouragement of Ian's more cat-like qualities through their play with Vanya. "I was of a mind to believe I was a favorite of his as well. His loss pained me, I see that now." 

Ian stares at him from under the hoods of his eyes. Their position has Mickey's head higher than their own, so that Ian has to look up at him in order for their gazes to catch. The inverse of their usual position gives rise to an unusual feeling within Mickey, though he cannot name it. "And I remind you of him?" Ian supposes. 

"And you remind me of him." Mickey brushes their noses together, lets their breath conjoin in the small gap between their mouths, great puffs of white manifesting in the chill of the air, smoke curling out of Ian's dragon-belly and up into Mickey's lips. "Can your face grow hair though, I wonder?"

Laughter causes more smoke to curl out from Ian's throat and up past his lips. To Mickey he feels warmer somehow, even though the layers of their clothes — Mickey's mind conjures grand thoughts of the fire inside of Ian being reignited, of the great storm battle and how Mickey was always thankful that any death blow extended to Veles was temporary, a serpent shedding its skin before being reborn anew just as surely as spring returns to the world no matter how harsh the winter the preceded it. He finds himself wishing this for Ian, that he may be immortal and important and incandescent in the beautiful lands of Virey. Mickey wants to give that to him, more than anything. 

Ian's hands come up to grip Mickey's shoulders. "I'm certainly willing to try, should you desire it," he says, then dips closer so that his cheek rests against Mickey's, so that his lips are pointed up to Mickey's ear. "Can you feel it, Mikhaíl? My desire to please you?" His voice sounds different, as if he'd been possessed, yet not unlike his old self.

Mickey's breath catches in his throat as he hastens to shift his weight from his knees so that he's sitting in Ian's lap rather than hovering so slightly overtop of it. He feels Ian's arousal between his legs, shudders as his body races to join Ian in it, in that feeling, the place they haven't shared in what feels like so long, too long. Mickey's mouth waters, his mind stuttering as it races to decide what it wants most, wants first. His hips rock of their own volition, and in Mickey's shocked state he doesn't bother to hide the motion as well as he probably should. 

"No," Jakub moans, but Mickey knows his brother well enough that his ears may catch the hint of relief. The vague, intermittent confessions Mickey has shared with Jakub since having left Veleti about his and Ian's lack of intimacy means that he has more knowledge than most, though surely Mickey's cousins and bastard brothers noticed thing had been amiss as well. Their two nights spent alone on the ship as the rest of Mickey's kin slept in lodgings led to only one other bout of familiarity, and just as with the first it involved Ian's sole attendance to Mickey, Ian's own desire laying dormant. 

Perhaps Ian has been reborn anew after all, returned to the original state which Mickey had first discovered him. 

Perhaps Veles has not forsaken Mickey after all. Perhaps he looked deep into Mickey's heart and saw what it was that Mickey truly needed, answering a request Mickey hadn't ever thought to make, shadowed to him and his heart through all of Mickey's suffering.

Perhaps Mickey needs to take Ian inside of him to give halt to this incessant reflection of things which he would never care to ponder, especially not now that he has Ian back with him, whole and _his_. 

"You two will catch your death and make the rest of us ill if you continue any further. Have some shame and seek privacy for once in your godforsaken lives, demons!" Jakub shouts in protest.

Mickey does as his brother says, dragging Ian to the deck below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this particular author had a good laugh at mickey's canon name being mikhail ~~o~~.


End file.
